TAT readers,

Today’s essay is a bit different. In many ways this collection of thoughts about the subjugation of the American people, some imposed and some self-imposed, is a stream of consciousness writing exercise. Just me ruminating over thoughts I have about the deep mess our nation is in. It’s the story of our nation’s descent into a hollow shell of its former self, or rather the hostile takeover of our republic by some of the world’s wealthiest men. The America I grew up in, could hardly be more different than what we witness today. It’s as if most Americans are dressed up in patriotic costumes for Halloween, but are either too apathetic or too addicted to the brainwashing babble of politicians, marketers and major corporations, to actually defend American Democracy.

Most Americans have never read the constitution and even fewer understand it. It’s really not that difficult as that our founders wanted a document that nearly every citizen could understand. In fact, both Jefferson and Madison clearly believed that the law should be clear enough so that everyone could understand it. Today’s SCOTUS, clearly doesn’t agree as that the right wing justices are perfectly willing to turn a basic document into a pretzel, in order to justify the court’s contortionist-like opinions that support Trump, Republicans and their oligarchs. Today’s conspiracy theory-laden right, dines exclusively on their fairly tales, while concurrently humiliating themselves in front of family, friends and communities, by repeating this most absurd nonsense. Some on the left are just as avoidant of reality, especially when it comes to Gaza and the Palestinian issue.

In the meantime, the reality of what America is and should be, has been largely lost or at least mothballed. Commercialism, the worship of celebrity and the willingness to believe in absurdities, has replaced the very basic civics and history classes we all experienced in elementary school through high school. There have been accomplices to this tragedy, almost exclusively from what at one time in US history, would have been called the “robber barons.” Today’s robber barons, exist in numbers increasing faster than the precipitous pace that our middle class is diminishing. Jobs once thought secure, are now often replaced by offshoring, automation and AI. Old-school tactics for saving money, planning for a future, educating our children and the all-important American dream of home ownership, are no longer relevant and in most cases, counterproductive.

"But the middle class has fallen behind on two key counts. The growth in income for the middle class since 1970 has not kept pace with the growth in income for the upper-income tier. And the share of total U.S. household income held by the middle class has plunged."

- The State of the American Middle Class
- Pew Research Center
- May 31st, 2024

None of this was the America I was born into. As a “baby boomer” I grew up in an America still swelling with pride in our democracy. Our successes in being a primary player in ridding the world of the fascism of the late 1930s and 1940s were a particular point of pride. We were united at home and with our allies, especially NATO throughout the Cold War, and reveled at the opportunity for real world peace after winning the Cold War against the Soviet Union. At the end of WW II, the GI bill, global primacy and burgeoning manufacturing held nearly unbridled optimism for most of America. Jobs were plentiful and nationally we represented the future due to our advances in science and technology. The world saw us as we preferred to see ourselves, ambitious, energetic and a global leader for democracy. America was a robust beacon to a world desperately seeking opportunity, democracy and safety.

"In that land the great experiment was to be made, by civilized man, of the attempt to construct society upon a new basis; and it was there, for the first time, that theories hitherto unknown, or deemed impracticable, were to exhibit a spectacle for which the world had not been prepared by the history of the past. 

– Alexis de Tocqueville
- Democracy in America 
- 1835 (Reeves translation)

We have forgotten who we were, not only in my lifetime but dating back to the earliest days of our “great experiment.” Behind those decades of pride and energetic forays into a brighter future, our Achilles Heel of apathy, materialism and tolerance of robber barrons, began to rear its ugly head again. We’ve been through the eras of oligarchs before, eventually reining them in before they could do as much damage as we currently see, with only one exception. The Confederacy, built on the planks of White Christian Nationalism, slavery, poor white labor and oligarchy, went to war with the union to save their un-American way of life. Today, we must again fight this war against a movement with their roots in the same ideology as the Confederacy, that I call, The four horsemen of the MAGA Apocalypse: Autocracy, Oligarchy, Christian Nationalism and Political Violence.

In roughly 1978 or 1979, along came Newt Gingrich and his “scorched earth” political style, headlined by the Moral Majority and later the Tea Party movement. Gingrich and the evolution from Moral Majority to Tea Party and now the MAGA movements, live by the mantra that says simply, “if the left wanted anything, it had to be rejected, no matter how much bipartisan support there was.” In 1980 Ronald Reagan came to office and thus began the GOP’s decades-long assault on the working classes, primarily via tax cuts to the wealthy. His “trickle down economics” were more of a slogan than a real economic strategy and which ultimately increased the deficit while expanding income inequality between the wealthy and everyone else. Legislation benefitting the elite wealth class then became all that the GOP was interested in, regardless of who got hurt. This hasn’t changed since.

"However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion."

- Farewell Address 
- President George Washington
- Saturday, September 17, 1796

Like our only independent president, George Washington, I despise the concept of political parties. Still, we are now saddled with them and so have only a couple of choices on our ballots. After SCOTUS’ Citizens United’s decision, dark money began to outright buy our elections. Now, that same dark money has also purchased and locked away in some deep dark prison cell, what it means to be an American. All they care about is winning so that they can continue to profit wildly from the influence they have purchased on the floor of Congress. Without the understanding of what it means to be an American based on our founding values, we are ceasing to represent the identity of the world’s most successful constitutional republic.

Nations like people, endure based on their identity and their ability to retain it. Ukraine’s success against Russia is a good example. Throughout our history, our identity could best be described as, hard-working, innovative and fiercely independent. We respect the “up by your bootstraps” success, underdogs, those who embody our founding principles, defiance against outside aggressors and even domestic ones, such as the Civil War Confederacy. With the exception of the GOP siding with Russia during and since the 2016 election, America has always rallied and unified to defend our nation and our values. Pre-WW II, our nation was like today, severely under strain by the Great Depression and similarly divided along racial, religious and class divides etc.

Still, after December 7th, 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan, nearly all of this divisiveness evaporated, almost overnight. Men committed suicide if they were deemed “4-F” or ineligible for military service. Americans of all backgrounds contributed to the war effort from “liberty gardens” to “Rosie the Riveter” women working in manufacturing. Women, minorities and all ethnicities clamored to support the war effort against the fascist Axis powers aligned against the free world. The US military desegregated and women served openly in the military. Our strength came from that specific American identity that thumbed our noses at bullies and aggressors in defense of liberty. That resilient unity, was America. What has changed in the Trump era? This is the question of the day and has a wide variety of answers. Let’s take a look at a couple of the most significant.

First of all, post WW II with GI Bill money for college home mortgages etc., far more Americans began to participate in the opportunity that most working Americans had little access to pre-war. Homes became more comfortable and with an avalanche of modern conveniences like central heating, washing machines and more. Sears and J.C. Penny stores dominated urban and rural America, enticing consumers with an ever-expanding bevy of new comfort items, styles and entertainment. Along with the entertainment, especially with the advent of television in more and more homes, access to news, entertainment and sports came along with advertising via mass media where before, only radio and newspapers thrived. Marketing in particular became far more cunning and often dishonest.

Who can forget the commercials bragging about the benefits of smoking? It didn’t just stop with cigarettes either. Marketers have always looked for any advantage to acquire market shares via any method or tactic, ethical or not. Today, just like in journalism, marketing ethics are more lip-service than not. In marketing, just like in my profession, influence operations, there are systems, tactics and strategies that are in no way ethical unless wielded against an avowed enemy. Americans are not enemies of marketers or journalists, but in our current nation we are treated as such. We are there only to be used for political or financial gain.

Politicians and political parties, wield all manner of modern tactics and resources to “sell” Americans on their ideology. Algorithms, trolls, bots, overtly dishonest campaign ads, silencing dissent etc. are just a handful of modern tactics. Even Google Search has taken a significant downturn that denies us the quality search results we could use to validate information. By using these unethical mass-media tactics and resources, they can make people believe in absurdities and in fact, brainwash their audiences, as we can see from the bizarre conspiracy theories that define today’s Republican party. The danger of those believing in absurdities was best expressed by a brilliant and prolific 18th century French Enlightenment writer and philosopher, named Voltaire.

“Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
― Voltaire

Secondly, someone must pay for all of this dishonest marketing of politicians and products. Oligarchs or the 1% pay the bills of those who deceive us, and at our expense. A staggering amount of this elite wealth class are the ones with the strategies to acquire not only more wealth, but power. As we now see in every part of our lives, we are paying more for less and this includes politics. For example, today’s Republicans consistently vote against their own self interests. They vote to lose their healthcare, pay more for groceries, pay higher taxes and all the while we are concurrently losing more of our constitutional rights. Bought and paid for politicians do the dirty work of these oligarchs by writing laws favorable to the wealthy over the essential needs of the rest of us.

Finally, there are only six or seven multi-national media conglomerates that control most of what we see, read, watch and hear. They ensure that we are distracted by reality shows, Tik-Tok and other influencers offering little or nothing of value to the human fabric of our nation. The pundits that tell us what to think, are a dime-a-dozen and are merely parroting the scripts they’ve been handed by CEOs, politicians, political parties and so on. They create the narratives that have replaced facts, for a very large portion of American audiences.

Many of the narratives of the right have to do with false patriotism. Historical revisionism is alive and well in today’s GOP, where they’ve basically replaced American history and our values, with a version best described as God, Guns and Trump. I cringe when I read or hear a Republican politician that makes some outrageous claims about our constitution or history, just to make their followers believe they are the true patriots. And yet, where is the vigorous rebuttal from constituents? We all watched the January 6th armed insurrection on our TV screens, phones and laptops, yet tens of millions of Republican voters will tell you with a straight face that there was no armed insurrection. This is the type of “absurdity” that should frighten every one of us.

Patriotism is a team sport and in today’s America, also a contact sport. We must be willing to stand toe-to-toe with the thuggery under contract to the MAGA GOP. In order to do this, we must reacquaint ourselves with who we are as Americans. As earlier noted, our identity as Americans hasn’t disappeared, but is lying dormant. Reacquainting ourselves with our historical and traditional identity, will once again rekindle the flame of liberty demonstrated on battlefields around the world, in the halls of congress and in our communities.

In order to find ourselves, we must see, read and hear news through a filter of truth and wisdom. We have known for nearly 250 years who we are and until the Trump era, it didn’t take much for us to remember and act on our patriotic identity. Those instincts are our most powerful weapons against tyranny, but first we must all get off of our couches and participate on a level not seen since WW II.

"I need not repeat the figures. The facts speak for themselves.... These men could not have been armed and equipped as they are had it not been for the miracle of production here at home. The production which has flowed from the country to all the battlefronts of the world has been due to the efforts of American business, American labor, and American farmers, working together as a patriotic team."

- President Franklin D. Roosevelt 
- Navy Day speech
- October 27, 1944

Americans at home and abroad pitched in to support the war effort, all the way from children to all adults. Rationing, salvaging metals to be recycled into military products, the liberty gardens and countless other government sponsored programs were worked by those at home, who could contribute their own unique skills and talents to the war effort. It wasn’t uncommon to hear the phrase, “don’t you know there’s a war on” in the streets, kitchens or businesses all across the country. This is the type of universal commitment that beckons to us now, as we persist in fighting our war against our own fascist regime. We’ve done this before and we know how. Waking up our historical American identity, is the surest way to manifest the same spirit of liberty that saw us through years of war, and on the heels of the Great Depression.

"The war effort on the "Home Front" required sacrifices and cooperation. "Don't you know there's a war on?" was a common expression. Rationing became part of everyday life. Americans learned to conserve vital resources. They lived with price controls, dealt with shortages of everything from nylons to housing, and volunteered for jobs ranging from air raid warden to Red Cross worker."

- Take A Closer Look: America Goes to War
- The National WW II Museum

I won’t belabor the concept that we must all work together to recover our liberty. We all know, but have somehow let these memories to lapse. We must be our own leaders because it is apparent that we are the cavalry. We still have little to nothing from the DNC. We have millions of Americans looking for leadership but must accept that at the moment, none is on the horizon. If our preferred choices cannot or will not lead, we must pick up the baton and lead as well. We can do this together or individually. The blueprint for success is written across the pages of our history books and lives in the memories of those who survived WW II. They are our advisors.

The goals of our movement are simple, and that is the narrative of our fight. We simply wish to restore our republic to a functioning state, where we are all equal before the law, don’t sell our souls to oligarchs and demand fair laws from our elected representatives. We must know our national values and act on them. Extend your hands to those still too timid to leave their sofas. We need them. Take at least one or two actions a day in support of the resistance, even if it is only to call an elected representative, write a comment on some administration official’s social media post or block-walk for candidates and causes. Like in our past, we must sacrifice a little time ,in order to restore and protect our republic. We’ve got this if we all just do a little. If WW II or our War of Independence is any guide, most will do far more than a little bit. It’s just who we are as Americans.

I’ll leave you now with one thought; I’m proud to stand next to every one of you dedicated to this cause. America is our home and we intend to keep it as our founders intended… free.

Onward

Paul

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TAT readers,

First and foremost, thank you for your patience these past few days while I took a short break. An opportunity arose for me to spend these days with my grandchildren who live far away. With our airlines operating far below any level of real dependability, I made this visit a road trip. The truth is, I was raised with and still find time alone on the road not only peaceful, but useful for pondering serious issues, such as the myriad of acute threats facing our nation and in fact, our world. In many ways, what I experienced on the road became the inspiration for today’s essay, the 8th in a series about the administration’s ill-conceived war with Iran. The focus today is the deep impact that this war, compounded by a year and a half, of criminal mismanagement of our government, has had on the day-to-day lives of all Americans.

It is no secret that the painful and so-called “affordability issues” facing most families, have been steadily increasing since January 20th of 2025. Now that we are engaged in an unconstitutional war with Iran, those painful issues have seen the administration and the ruling Republican Party, throw the proverbial “salt in the wounds” of most citizens, their families and especially their household budgets. Via decades in business prior to returning to the Army to finish my military career, I have long understood the difficulty for citizens to correlate major national and global events to their own daily lives.

I write now to better help readers understand that there are direct and often painful personal correlations to these high-profile events. As a spoiler alert, I want everyone to know there is more pain ahead with little to no relief anywhere in sight. We are being robbed by the “liars, cowards and thieves” in government, associated oligarchy and the alleged experts permeating our daily online and other news experiences. As the title, Truth about Threats clearly states, I am here to distill complex situations into digestible narratives that illustrate the truths that our media and pundits won’t. Unlike the news channels and political pundits, I have no partisan axe to grind. I have zero corporate affiliations or other entanglements that skew my opinions away from truth. My north star is our constitution and the true American principles defined by that sacred document.

As we continue to wade even deeper into the quicksand of another Middle Eastern war, it is imperative that voters have a much clearer view of what is at stake, if only to better protect themselves. To date, this series has been an attempt to give readers exactly that view. As I have mentioned in the previous essays, this topic is beyond complex and so for those who’ve not read the first seven essays, they are linked here below and preceding the body of today’s essay.

Onward

• Part I: The coming war with Iran - by Paul Cobaugh

• Part II: It’s just always about the oil - by Paul Cobaugh

• Part III: The Iran War: Criminal Malfeasance

• Part 4: the War with Iran leads to grave consequences on a local and global scale

• Part V: The Iran quagmire is becoming quicksand

• Part VI, the Iran War: Never say it cannot get worse.

• Part 7: The Iran War, Trump surrenders - by Paul Cobaugh

Background since Part VII was published on April 11th.

Eleven days ago, we were told that we had entered into a ceasefire with Iran, despite there being no evidence of any written agreement. This is SOP or “standard operating procedure” for this administration and their party. We the people, have been mostly in the dark about this war from even before the first munitions were released. In fact, this administration treats all information as gold to be hoarded. Their coercion of all corporate media to only report the little “good news” about the war and refusal to inform the public with truth, has those without deep experience and connections to the national security community, largely in the dark. It’s a dangerous time for Americans to be “in-the-dark” about the threats to their daily lives.

In the time between the last installment and today, little of significance has occurred regarding the war itself. In the ripple effects created by the war, there have been significant developments in the global order, the economies of most global nations and direct ramifications for Americans here at home. Abroad, we’ve seen lip-service to ceasefire talks from J.D. Vance and his fellow henchmen, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. Zero progress has been made and worst of all, Iran still holds all the “trump-cards”… pun intended. Even in today’s Times of Israel, there is an article stating that the Trump administration’s messaging about the war and ceasefire talks has been “muddled” and unhelpful to any resolution. In the meantime, Trump continues to bluster nonsensical threats against Iran. Iran and all true experts regarding the region, haven’t stopped laughing at these threats, despite none of this being a laughing matter.

There are no major agreements on the horizon. Mr. “Art of the Deal” is clueless about negotiating with anyone in the Middle East and Jared Kushner, Mike Huckabee and Steve Witkoff are sure as hell clueless. Negotiation in the region is an artform, foreign to most Americans. I have decades of experience dealing with those in the region both in business and via military engagement. Such negotiations are unlike anything we experience here in the US and all of them involve significant risks to the losers in such negotiations. Trump’s Mafia-styled and heavy-handed tactics are all he knows. None of these coercive tactics have any resonance in the region. To be frank, regardless of ethnicity, religion or otherwise, most indigenous populations in the region, simply laugh at Trump’s worthless threats.

Outside of violating even more international laws regarding war, Trump has no cards at all. Threatening the “end of a civilization” or destroying all of Iran’s civilian infrastructure, are both overt and serious violations of all international law regarding armed conflict. The US under this administration, is a pariah to most of the world. The only option left to the US is to put massive numbers of troops on the ground and hope for the best. Even if we won, Iran still has the wherewithal to undo pretty much all of the region’s oil infrastructure. In fact, they have threatened to do so in response to Trump’s boisterous and impotent threats. This would toss the global economy into freefall. Such a freefall would make the Great Depression of the 1930s look like a minor hiccup in the global economy.

"WASHINGTON—US President Donald Trump wants the Iran war to be a “win” for the United States. It could be—if Iran gives up building a nuclear weapon, opens the Strait of Hormuz, ends its support for proxy militias, and accepts limits on missiles and drones.

However, on March 30, Trump said that if there is no deal on these issues, the United States “will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!).” Two days later, in a primetime national address, Trump said, “If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric-generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously.” 

But strikes on Iranian infrastructure would not constitute a winning strategy for the United States. Iran’s peculiar sense of symmetry means that Tehran will almost certainly retaliate by attacking Arab Gulf states’ energy and drinking water infrastructure—with potentially catastrophic consequences. Moreover, given how Iran’s leaders think, infrastructure strikes are unlikely to get Iran to lift its blockade of the strait."

- Attacking Iran’s energy and water infrastructure is not a winning strategy
- The Atlantic Council
- By Thomas S. Warrick 
- April 3, 2026 6:21 p.m. ET

So there we have it, Iran does indeed hold the trump-cards and they know it. So do Iran’s backers, Russia and China. This cruel and greedy administration have cut off America from her century-old allies at NATO, the EU and others around the world. We are alone except for Trump’s penchant for saving Putin. Even Putin though is focused exclusively on saving himself and Russia and who has often humiliated Trump on the global stage. The four most powerful militaries and economies on earth are the US, China, India and to some extent, Russia and should they decide that a US led by a mafia-like extortionist is a threat to their economies, there is the distinct potential for an anti-US alliance. With Iranian fossil fuels being critical to the economies of all the above, they will have no choice but to unify to keep the global economy on sound footing. With this said, now we must look at what an isolationist and cruel US is doing to global economies, including ours. This is where warning lights are flashing red for the overwhelming majority of US households.

So what does all of this background have to do with your household budgets?

Step one is to acknowledge that the war on Iran was quite far from the beginning of our affordability crisis. For most Americans, budgets have been tight since the COVID pandemic. What so many called inflation during the run-up to 2024 election, was in my opinion, mislabeled. Yes, things cost more and in some cases, far more but except for the first year of COVID, I often wrote during those days that what we were experiencing was price-gouging by oligarchical corporations rather than inflation. I won’t write much today on the details of why I believed this, but will include below a couple of links from that period, that explain in detail.

• It's not Inflation, its price-gouging by corporate Oligarchs, who are also, the largest campaign donors.

• Oligarchy and its evil offspring... price-gouging

The Trump campaign in 2024 employed the false narrative of “inflation” during the campaign, promising to lower prices across the board if elected. Well, as any US family knows, affordability is an ongoing serious issue and is worsening. Inflation jumped to 3.3% last month alone, and largely due to the war with Iran.

Another way to look at affordability besides inflation data is via CPI or the Consumer Price Index.

“The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services. Indexes are available for the U.S. and various geographic areas. Average price data for select utility, automotive fuel, and food items are also available.”

- US Bureau of Labor Statistics

What this data is telling us is that yes, there are serious affordability issues for most Americans. As the chart below indicates, the CPI has been mostly declining since we began getting control of COVID in 2023 and since this January, has spiked upwards significantly. Most economists predict it will continue to climb and dramatically so should the Strait of Hormuz remain closed for an extended period of time.

With wages stagnant and and the income disparity between the ultra wealthy and the other 90% of Americans continually increasing, there is little or no hope for higher wages to offset inflation on our horizon. In a long report from the Brooking Institution at the end of 2025, that data paints a dim picture for the middle and lower classes.

"The nation’s affordability crisis has not spared middle-class families, one-third of which struggle to afford basic necessities such as food, housing, and child care.

Across the 160 U.S. metro areas studied, at least 20% of middle-class earners cannot afford to live in that place, after adjusting for local income ranges and price variations.

The share of struggling middle-class families varies by race: 27% of white families, 39% of Black families, 41% of Asian American families, 46% of Native American families, and 50% of Latino or Hispanic families are unable to afford basic necessities.

- In every corner of the country, the middle class struggles with affordability
- The Brookings Institution
- Hannah Stephens and Andre M. Perry
- December 2, 2025

As noted, the Brookings report was December of 2025 and with the war beginning February 28th, things have gone downhill from there. They will continue to do so without adult intervention at the highest levels.

As mentioned at the beginning of today’s essay, I have just completed a road trip to and from California from Texas. Long road trips give those who are observant some decisive insights into the state of affairs for working Americans. For example, gas was terribly expensive, but diesel was roughly two dollars a gallon more than gasoline. The reason this matters is that nearly everything we buy somehow is moved by truck, all across the nation. Last December, diesel was roughly $3.50 per gallon and now it hovers between $5.50 and $6 dollars per gallon. These significant transportation costs are then passed along to us, the consumers. The 19% increase in fuel costs represent the biggest monthly jump since records began being collected in 1967.

While that much of what we purchase off of supermarket or retail shelves was transported before the war, new shipments will reflect the large jump in fuel prices caused by the war. As for increases in food prices, the Persian Gulf, now controlled by Iran, contributes another immovable obstacle to lowering food prices. Roughly a third of the world’s fertilizer comes from the Persian Gulf. Spring planting across the nation is at risk for farmers because of this issue. Even if farmers can get the fertilizer they need, the costs will be far in excess of what they can afford, necessitating that they take the risk of borrowing at higher interest rates, just to be able to plant. It may take another month or so before we begin seeing these price increases but we will see them. The ripple-effect from the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, means more pain at the cash register for all of us.

With the bulk of the US middle class having to make hard budget decisions at home, the lack of expendable income impacts nearly every aspect of our economy. Consumer confidence is now at its lowest point since records have been kept.

"The Consumer Sentiment reading from the University of Michigan's Survey of Consumers sank 11% to an all-time low of 47.6 in early April 2026, far below both market expectations of 52. That was 9% lower than last year.

Consumers “across age, income, and political party all posted setbacks in sentiment, as did every component of the index, reflecting the widespread nature of this month’s fall,” the survey director said in a release.

“Assessments of personal finances declined about 11%, with consumers expressing a substantial increase in concerns over high prices and weaker asset values,” the release added. “Open ended comments show that many consumers blame the Iran conflict for unfavorable changes to the economy."

- Inflation surged following start of Iran war, March CPI report shows
- USA Today
- Andrea Riquier Rachel Barber Jessica Guynn Betty Lin-Fisher
- April 10th, 2026

One last issue that exacerbates affordability for US families is the issue of healthcare. Although not linked directly to the Iran war, most consider increasing healthcare costs the most significant issue on their affordability list. With over a million losing their healthcare since passage of the Big Ugly Bill and another 14 million projected to lose their healthcare if the Republican-led Congress fails to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, even more stable middle class families will be at risk for being able to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. Across the board, Americans cannot afford their current lives. The increased costs from the war simply make an untenable situation, far worse and yet, the administration, GOP-led Congress and their billionaire enablers don’t give a damn.

To rub salt into the wounds of struggling families, a select few within and closely associated with the administration, have made more than a billion dollars in suspicious, perfectly timed trades. Enormous defense contracts to administration insiders with hastily created business entities, reek of overt nepotism as well. With DOJ impotent due to corrupt leadership, firings and an unwillingness to prosecute anyone in or associated with the administration leaves a vile taste in the mouths of those laboring just to make ends meet.

There are plenty more issues that reinforce my points regarding the travesty of what is being done to the working Americans, who support our nation with their toils and taxes, but by now I believe that we all get the point. It’s now time to wrap up this sobering essay.

As noted earlier at the beginning, I write these essays because I believe that everyone one of us deserves to know the whole picture about what is occurring to our nation. Most news media in the Trump/ MAGA era won’t publish the comprehensive stories for fear of upsetting the administration. We struggle to acquire any facts at all from our own government and the administration’s extortion of media conglomerates, prevents them from shining too much negative reporting on the overt and pervasive criminality oozing from it. Republican politicians shamelessly stand in front of cameras and tell us that we didn’t see what we saw and didn’t hear what we heard. We are devoid of any sense of reality from the very government that we pay for and that the so-called 1% don’t.

Those taxes we pay are now being used to pay for a war we didn’t want or need, and that in my opinion was for oil and power. The costs of this war far exceed what we are actually spending on it. As we learned in this essay, the ripple effects emanating from the ensuing calamity are having a painfully direct impact onto the lives of middle and lower class Americans. To make matters worse, there is no obvious end anywhere in sight. Even should a perfect agreement be made tomorrow between all of the warring parties, the damage is already done. In recent remarks, Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former CIA officer made it very clear that it will take well over a year to put the global economy back onto stable footing.

Opening the Strait of Hormuz is the least of the problems if a sustainable peace can be achieved. The damage to regional infrastructure will persist for a couple of years and the reputational damage to the US will last generations. We are now a pariah to the world. This war will negatively impact global US business and commerce interests for at least a generation. As discussed in previous essays, our national security is more at risk now, than at any time since our Civil War. These are long-term concerns but at the moment, we must focus on putting an end to the cruel, selfish greed of this criminal administration before they can do any more damage to our already fragile constitutional republic.

We have little immediate say in the prosecution of this war or its outcome. We will though pay the price as we go about our daily lives, whether it’s at the supermarket, gas pump or our jobs. The light at the end of this tunnel will be the midterm elections. We will even have to fight to win those, especially with the Democratic Party missing in action six months before these all important elections. As sobering as all of this sounds, we do have one ace-in-the-hole, American tradition. Part of American identity, is to stubbornly succeed when the odds are stacked against us. Few nations love an underdog the way the Americans do. We’re not just any underdog either. We’re scrappy, well-seasoned and have 250 years of experience standing up to authoritarian bullies and winning. It will still require more work than we can now imagine, but if we behave as our patriotic predecessors and channel their tenacity, we can do this.

Returning for just a moment to visiting with my grandchildren, it’s their future that I must commit to defending. I have no doubt that all of you feel the same for the future of your loved ones. Protecting liberty for the oppressed is also part of our patriotic DNA. We must not fail.

Onward,

Publius Redux

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TAT readers,

I will be blunt, we’ve surrendered to Iran. All that will change as so-called “negotiations” go forward in Pakistan, are the details of some potentially final agreement. The bottom-line though is that the US gains are minimal and Iran, supported by Russia and China still holds leverage over the US and the world, via controlling the Straits of Hormuz. In the first six parts of this series, we’ve dug deeply into many of the complex layers of issues surrounding the current war. Today, I will offer some of the notable developments but apply more focus towards how the war has shaped the previously discussed, “new world order,” heralded by Putin immediately after Trump’s election win, in November of 2024.

Although there’s a great deal to unpack in this essay, I will also rely on the links to the previous six essays, to offer deeper insights to those who may not have seen them when first published. As with most geo-political or strategic events, there are countless layers to consider, and the Iran War is one such event… on steroids. The war lies at the intersection of global commerce, energy markets, former Cold War tension, posturing by the world’s largest powers and economies, millennium-old religious tensions and even a prominent battlefield between global liberty and authoritarianism. This my friends is just the short-list.

Onward

Links to the previous parts of this series

• Part I: The coming war with Iran - by Paul Cobaugh

• Part II: It’s just always about the oil - by Paul Cobaugh

• Part III: The Iran War: Criminal Malfeasance

• Part 4: the War with Iran leads to grave consequences on a local and global scale

• Part V: The Iran quagmire is becoming quicksand

• Part VI, the Iran War: Never say it cannot get worse.

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Overview

At the end of February, the US joined Israel in a weeks long assault on Iran. While that Israel had due cause, we still have no idea why the US participated in an active role. There was no imminent threat, no ballistic missile threat, no sanctions threats nor any other compelling reasons at the time. As I discussed in Part II, there’s strong case to be made that this dangerous and lawless administration, was pursuing both oil and the power of having a dominant presence over the Strait of Hormuz, which impacts every nation on earth in one fashion or another.

The primary successes for both Israel and the US, have been in the diminishment of Iran’s military infrastructure, which has the potential, though yet unsubstantiated, to mitigate the endless list of atrocities perpetrated by Iran globally. Still though, Iran has clearly demonstrated that they are militarily resilient and even dangerous, as the ramifications of their assaults across the Gulf at the Arab Gulf oil states clearly shows. The damage to oil infrastructure, military bases, commerce and access to 20% of the world’s oil, has wreaked havoc on global markets, undermined critical international commerce and imposed even deeper inflation onto many of our fellow US citizens and global citizens. All of these citizens are now held hostage to greed, power, criminal intentions and a complete lack of caring for any of us, except the elite wealth classes.

As we stand right now, we are told that there’s a ceasefire, while that no one has apparently seen any documentation of such. There is apparently little to no serious coordination going on with Israel, other than a last minute call from the White House for Israel to also implement a ceasefire against aggressive, terrorist Hezbollah fighters in Southern Lebanon, who were raining terror down on Israel for the past few weeks. I know this first-hand because I regularly speak with one of my daughters, living in Israel’s north. She has been in and out of bomb shelters regularly, ever since the war began. Still, most western media dishonestly blames Israel for fighting against terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah, who’ve attacked the Jewish state incessantly for decades. I may have a professional disagreement or two with a couple of Israel’s tactics and their far-right extremist governing coalition, but I do not besmirch her rights to self-defense.

Now, let’s get into some of the primary points regarding the new geo-political alignment of the world’s major powers. Spoiler alert, all have either outright autocracies or have deeply flawed democracies. Yes, the US is one of these. The others are in hierarchical order of power, China, the US, Russia and India. As you can see, at this point in time, the US is largely a stand-alone nation and mostly devoid of allies. China has Russia and to a limited degree, India as well. Iran is important to all three. In many other ways, the US is now an ally of Putin and is even now cooperating more with China, in some quiet but disturbing ways.

The “new world order,” Putin-style

What we must come to terms with is that the old world order, largely defined as East vs. West or democracy vs. the communism of the Cold War is dead, never to be resurrected. After the Soviet Union imploded, the world was in flux for a couple of decades, with major powers looking at what a new alignment would look like. After WW II, the world existed on what is called, “The Rules-Based, International Order” or RBIO. Circa 2014, Russia’s invasion of Crimea set the stage for what would become a new Russian philosophy regarding sovereignty, global power and basically, who would rule the world. What we are seeing now is the logical progression of Putin’s favorite sovereignty concepts. The players are the US, Russia, China and to some extent, maybe India.

 "The concept of a multipolar oligarchy leads to the Russian concept that true sovereignty is possessed by only a few great powers; the sovereignty of states it views as dependent on great powers is limited. The territory of true sovereigns and those states under Russian protection is sacrosanct and can be defended by force; for the others, it is impermissible to regain territory that is “in dispute” by force. As an example of the former, consider the lengths to which Russia has gone to protect Syria’s use of armed force against its own population, whereas the sovereignty of former Soviet states such as Azerbaijan, Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine must be negotiated."

- Russia at the United Nations: Law, Sovereignty, and Legitimacy
- Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
- Philip Remler
- January 22, 2020

This Putinesque view of sovereignty, is what we are watching materialize, right before our very eyes. The war with Iran plays an important role for Russia, China, India and Iran. The war also has shown the limits of US power. From the beginning of military powered flight, there has been an argument by air forces that they don’t require ground or maritime forces to win a war. The proof of this concept’s failure is written all over Iran, in the devastation without subjugation of the Iranian Terrorist regime. We learned the same lessons in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yemen, etc. Still, the absurdity of believing you can accomplish regime change in a heavily defended, ideologically supercharged regime, is sheer madness. US and Israeli intelligence had already concluded before beginning the bombing, that regime change wasn’t in the cards.

The evidence to date indicates that Russia will become the primary sovereign for Europe, Syria and likely will retain Iran due to their intrinsic value in supplying Putin’s military. Still, Putin’s reach is severely limited now that his military has become a laughing stock in Ukraine. Just when some progress was being made on undermining the Russian economy via sanctions, along comes the Iran war. Now Putin is projected to make up to $10B more per month in oil revenue, meaning Russia’s current financial crisis appears to be survivable and downright profitable. But Putin still has Trump as his “ace-in-the-hole.” Whenever things have been tough for Putin’s foreign policy, somehow Trump’s administration seems to come to the rescue.

"But just as the economic downturn appeared set to force Putin to make difficult choices – perhaps having to concede ground in Ukraine peace talks – the US-Israeli war on Iran gifted Putin a huge win.

In the near term, this will serve as a get out of jail card for Putin. Higher oil and energy prices, and the US decision to ease sanctions on Russian oil, will bolster budget and balance of payments inflows to Russia." 

- The Iran war has been an economic gift for Putin
- Chatham House
- Timothy Ash
- April 10th, 2026

The fact that the Trump administration plays the occasional tough guy on Russia, close watchers will see both leaders with fixed gazes on some future target. I believe this target to be a world divided into the sovereign oligarchies of only a handful of fully sovereign nations. Each will manage several nations with lesser sovereignty rights and always subject to military intervention by primary sovereigns. The way things have been realigning, it appears Russia will be the primary sovereign oligarch from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic, including all of Europe. The US gets the western hemisphere and China, all of Asia with potentially India occupying a unique role above secondary sovereign nations, but not equal to the big three.

We’ve seen ample evidence of this new world order from the Trump administration with their attack and administrative takeover of Venezuela, the blockade of Cuba, incessant threats against Greenland and this is merely the short list. There are examples from the Arctic to the tip of Argentina’s and Chile’s Patagonian region. Russia is still attempting but losing steam in Ukraine while China has made her typical, quieter moves on the strategic chessboard. If anyone is a “big” winner in the Iran war, it is China.

China now is allowed special dispensation to navigate the Strait of Hormuz, in order to acquire the fossil fuels she needs for her manufacturing sector. Depending on which source you read, Iran provides between 13-15% of China’s energy resources. Add to this that Xi has been banking deeply discounted Russian oil by storing it in his oil reserves. Deeply discounted Russian oil is available to Xi due to China coming to Putin’s rescue when he was desperately in need in Ukraine and at home. It doesn’t end there either.

"Meantime, China and Russia are sitting on the sidelines. Why? China is dependent on Iran, which supplies 13 percent of China’s oil imports at discounted prices. Since 2021, Iran has been locked into a 25-year cooperation agreement with Beijing, securing $400 billion of oil at below-market prices in exchange for Chinese investment and security cooperation. Russia, for its part, has relied on Iran as its most important Middle Eastern partner since Western sanctions on Russia began in 2014. Both countries had been propping up Tehran financially, militarily, and diplomatically for years."

- How Russia and China are winning the war in Iran 
- PETERSON INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
- Elina Ribakova
- March 30, 2026

The claimed US and Iranian ceasefire talks are now being held in Pakistan. Pakistan is very much in debt to China due to being the host nation for the crown jewel of Xi’s China Dream Strategy, built along the spine of his BRI or Belt and Road Initiative. That jewel is called CPEC, China Pakistan Economic Corridor. This is a series of infrastructure investments from China running the length of Pakistan and terminating at the port of Gwadar, roughly 20 miles from the border with Iran. CPEC’s importance to Xi is significant despite a rough go of developing CPEC due to Pakistan’s myriad of protests, inefficient bureaucracy and ongoing terrorist resistance in Baluchistan.

On the other side of the Iranian and Pakistani border, India has also built a port at Chabahar, designed to foment trade and to provide critical access to middle eastern oil from the Persian Gulf, especially Iran. With China footing the bill for massive CPEC investment in Pakistan, she now enjoys significant leverage over her. Pakistan has long had a deep relationship with middle eastern Muslim states and Xi is banking on that influence to deliver an Iran war peace plan favorable to China. Meanwhile, the US enters the negotiations with no cards, no strategy and being led and supported by greedy and ideologically compromised imbeciles like J.D. Vance, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.

At the moment, of the three major powers, the US, Russia and China, it is Xi that is in the catbird seat. He has reach, leverage and has managed to keep a lower profile throughout the past few weeks. So far, Xi and Putin have escaped from major public scrutiny, despite their assistance to Iran, to include targeting information of US military targets. As I am writing this, I notice a news update that shares that China will now be providing Iran with new, advanced air defense systems in a few weeks. These are notably more dangerous systems for our air crews to deal with. Apparently Iran has allies while the current US administration enjoys insulting ours. Just recently, Trump is back to discussing leaving NATO, declaring that they are doing nothing to help with the war that Trump started.

So as we enter negotiations led by Vance, let’s take a moment to add another datapoint to Trump and the GOP leadership’s cooperation with Putin. This week, Vance was in Hungary, campaigning for Viktor Orban’ the Hungarian extreme right-wing Prime Minister and acolyte of Putin. Orban’ is the darling of the MAGA GOP and has been involved with CPAC for years, often as a keynote speaker. It was Republican leadership that has worked with Orban’, often with GOP congressional reps to end aid for Ukraine.

We’ve covered a great deal in this essay and so it’s time to wrap this up with a coherent narrative of where we are regarding Iran and the Trump administration’s cooperation with Russia. With China now being the senior partner in the Russia/ Chinese relationship, cooperation with Putin is tantamount to cooperating with China. This can be seen in other ways as well, considering the administration’s recent announcement that it would sell some of our most sophisticated computer chips to China, something unthinkable to all other modern administrations. Add to this that the administration is now also working on deals with China regarding the rare earth minerals, critical to technology development.

Summary

There is no reason to believe that the US won or is winning anything related to the White House’s war on Iran. As noted earlier, the best that can be said is that we have diminished Iran’s military network and infrastructure enough to keep them from being a regional powerhouse for a couple of years. On the other hand, Iran has come through the war to date, as a resilient regime with quiet but powerful counterweights to US power. This only enhances those adversaries. Working with Putin and tangentially Xi, while both are responsible for advancing Iran’s ability to not only survive the war but raise the odds against our troops by providing targeting information to Iran.

China is the biggest winner and Xi also has significant leverage over Pakistan, where negotiations are being held. Without NATO and other allies, we are alone in the world. This degrades our national security acutely. With China now in a power position and US munitions prepositioned in Pacific Command taken for use in Iran, Xi now has his best chance in decades to recover Taiwan. The US would be severely limited by lack of critical munitions and a reluctance of former allies to go to war alongside of us in the Pacific. The US is no longer trustworthy as a reliable ally. Russia’s potential threat to the US is also limited because she has had her military decimated. Still, Russia and China make for a powerful set of adversaries.

"The US-Iran war has called this entire model into question. Politically, the war has raised new doubts about America’s commitment to European security and to Ukraine. Europeans’ unwillingness to participate in the US and Israeli military campaign has increased the Trump administration’s resentment towards NATO. If Trump acts on his pledge to ‘remember’ Europe’s ‘betrayal’, he could request a faster withdrawal of US personnel from key NATO posts, or reassess the US force posture in Europe."

-  Assessing the damage: What the Iran war really means for Europe’s defence
- European Union Institute for Security Studies
- Luigi Scazzieri, Giuseppe Spatafora
- April 9, 2026

As the new world order comes more into focus, we are faced with a harrowing vision of our world being carved up into pieces controlled by a handful of powerful authoritarian nations. Still, the leaders of these nations are all hungry for power and global domination in the long run. In fact, Xi’s China Dream strategy, calls for China to become the regional hegemon by 2025 and achieve global hegemony by 2049. If the old adage, “there’s no honor among thieves” holds true, it would be hard to imagine that the three power-hungry authoritarians in question, could cooperate as co-world leaders for long.

So the US is faced with two weighty issues; removing this administration and Republican-led enablers in congress from office and rebuilding the extensive damage done to our national security community. This is especially critical in the intelligence community where longtime professionals and experts are already warning us of the structural damage done. Americans have always loved great comebacks in our books, songs and movies. Rooting for the underdog and making a comeback is in our DNA and can be seen in countless examples throughout our history. We not only can do this, but now have no choice, if we are to survive as a constitutional republic.

There are innumerable challenges ahead for us and I do have faith that we will restore our republic, but only if we are reacquaint ourselves with who we are as Americans. Recovering that true American Spirit means also to reject fake patriotism and raise our collective voices against the fake-patriotism of today’s GOP. At the moment, the GOP’s fake-patriotism is just as loud as it is repugnant. Our voices must drown-out their conspiracy theories, lies and false narratives. Like most of you, I was raised to be polite and not discuss politics in public. Those were different times though and the GOP threat cannot be allowed to go a step further.

Trump, his colleagues and enablers just spent a billion dollars of our tax dollars a day on a war where he’s now waving a white flag. What was it for? What did we achieve and what did we lose in the process? These are only two of the endless list of questions that we all have. We will have no answers until we “throw the bums out.” We also must rid our republic from these shameless usurpers before it is us, not Trump waving the white flag.

My very best for your weekend,

Paul

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TAT readers,

Welcome back from the long holiday weekend. Like most of you, I attempted to catch my breath for a couple of days, but the regime running our government is incessantly lurking in the background and undermining our lives, while destroying our economy and national security in the process. If we are to have any hope of extricating ourselves from this greedy war for oil and power, we must be well-informed enough to put relentless pressure on every single, sitting republican congressman or senator. Only their support to the other side of the aisle, can achieve any restraint on the lunacy in the Oval Office.

As citizens, we have every reason to act and all it takes is a trip to the gas station or a supermarket to know why. The threat to our national security, has grown exponentially as well in the past 5 weeks. This issue has been poorly covered by most mainstream reporting, whose entities have either willingly or have been coerced into handling the administration with “kid gloves.” The truth is, the war is not going well for us and the administration has via incompetence, handed the Iranian regime the lion’s share of the leverage in negotiations.

Today’s essay, the sixth in the series will largely deal with why I believe the US to be now far weaker globally, too deeply entrenched in the financial disasters they continue to cause and which can be best described with an old Argentine slang word, quilombo.

"In Lunfardo (A Buenos Aires largely Spanish dialect), the word “quilombo” means a mess, scandal, uproar, disorder, or conflict. In the past, quilombo strictly referred to brothels or so-called houses of ill repute; however, as the term evolved, it began to be applied to disorganized or messy conditions or situations of conflict."

- The Meaning of ‘Quilombo’
- Transpanish
- 2011

As this is the latest in this series of essays, I will link the first five parts below, before beginning the body of this essay.

Now let’s get to the facts about this ever-worsening, global quilombo created by Trump, his administration and some of his wealthiest oligarchs.

• Part I: The coming war with Iran - by Paul Cobaugh

• Part II: It’s just always about the oil - by Paul Cobaugh

• Part III: The Iran War: Criminal Malfeasance

• Part 4: the War with Iran leads to grave consequences on a local and global scale

• Part V: The Iran quagmire is becoming quicksand

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Let’s start with the economic implications for the US and the globe, resulting from entering a war without a declared reason. To be perfectly clear, we still have no idea why we are at war in the first place. As of March 6th, The Atlantic had already isolated 10 separate rationales for the US joining Israel against Iran. I have also lost focus on the “why” and simply because it no longer matters. The old saying, “when in a hole, the first order of business is to stop digging,” comes to mind here. We’re in a deep hole with this ill-advised war and yet, the administration hasn’t stopped digging us in deeper.

"On the third day of the war in Iran, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called Operation Epic Fury the “most-precise aerial operation in history.” A difficult claim to fact-check. More difficult still has been parsing statements from the White House and the Pentagon to figure out, with any exactitude, why we are at war in the first place. So far, the Trump administration has offered at least 10 separate rationales in just six days."

- Six Days of War, 10 Rationales
- The Atlantic
- By Marie-Rose Sheinerman and Isabel Ruehl
- March 6th, 2026

So where does this war leave us, the American people, at this point in time? This is a tough question to answer simply, so let’s take a look at some supporting evidence. A good place to start are with some of the facts included in a Washington Post article this past Saturday. Below are a handful of quotes from the referenced article. As a warning, they are not optimistic.

- "Americans, by a margin of 56 percent to 7 percent, expect the war to have a “mostly negative impact” on their personal financial situation, according to a March 31 Ipsos poll. A Middle East conflict that lasts for several more months would almost certainly spread higher prices and supply chain disruption beyond Asia and Europe to American shores.

- "A three-month interruption of normal maritime commerce would drive oil prices to $170 per barrel, said Bloomberg Economics. If the war lasts for six months, the global economy — starved of 13 million barrels of oil each day — would sink into a recession, Oxford Economics said on Thursday."

- "But Americans’ war tab is mounting. Regular gasoline prices now top $4.09 per gallon, according to AAA. At $5.53 per gallon, diesel — which powers the freight and farm sectors — is approaching the all-time high of $5.82, reached after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine."

- "The strait’s closure, cutting off crude oil shipments to Asia, means that petrochemical plants in places like India and China are running short of the feedstock they use to make all kinds of products, including cosmetics, auto parts, paints, household cleaners, beverage containers and aerospace components."

- "Three of the world’s top 10 producers of urea and anhydrous ammonia fertilizer — Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Iran — are in the conflict zone. Most American farmers have already locked in their fertilizer orders for this year’s plantings, though those who have not will face soaring bills, according to Krista Swanson, chief economist of the National Corn Growers Association."

- "The closure of the strait has blocked roughly one-third of the global supply of another critical industrial input, helium, which is a by-product of natural gas production. The loss of Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas complex, heavily damaged by Iranian missile and drone strikes last month, will depress global supplies of the industrial gas for up to five years."

- "The price of urea fertilizer, for example, is up roughly 50 percent since the end of February. If the war lasts into May, farmers will still confront high prices in August when they order next year’s fertilizer, she said.

“If this continues on, this will be an issue for all corn growers for the 2027 crop,” Swanson said."

- The war’s economic impact could get worse for Americans
- The Washington Post
- David Lynch
- April 4th, 2026

Across the pond at Oxford University, their prognosis is just as dire as the Washington Post’s.

In the graphic above, it is quite easy to see that American households will have less disposable income, higher inflation and higher unemployment. Overall, this will drop consumer spending to %1.9 compared to the %2.5 last February, the worst numbers since 2013, excluding the pandemic period. Such a significant drop in the amount of disposable money left over for families, hurts retail and wholesale businesses the worst. Fuel prices, which are not likely to improve significantly for quite a while, are doing the most damage to individual households. With national spikes in electricity, fossil fuels for heat, transportation and industry, working Americans will experience significant financial hardship, in addition to our current affordability hurdles.

In Europe, nations are now calling on a “profit-cap” on energy companies, in order to offset the threat to the European economies and their citizens. There is even consideration that potentially, the entire EU could back a similar measure. While that the current Republican-led US Congress would never consider a similar measure until they become more desperate closer to the midterms, it will be us, the taxpayers that will ultimately pay the bill for the likely federal bailouts to select industries like farming, for the harm done to them by the callous recklessness of the administration.

Although we at home will suffer from intensifying inflation in most sectors of our lives, there are a couple of industries, smiling all the way to the bank, defense and the fossil fuel providers. In both cases, they are reaping enormous profits due to the war. Reasonable analysis could see oil hit $ 170 a barrel and the defense industry is in most cases, profiting at similar levels to big oil. This raises another deeply troubling aspect of these profits, insider trading claims against congressmen, administration officials and the Trump family can hardly be ignored. This is pure graft that only rewards a handful of Trumpian elites. Remember this when buying gas, food and your health insurance.

I have no doubts that those who have “allegedly” been profiting from insider trading, are as guilty as can be. It is not a coincidence that Trump administration officials and family, GOP congressmen and close friends of Trump have trades that nearly scream, “look at me,” due to how flagrantly they appear to break the law. While these criminals are emptying our treasury, the American people are suffering terribly from the affordability crisis. This disgracefully planned and incompetently run war, simply makes the crisis worse and by the commentary of all serious economists, will grow worse, even after the war is over, whatever that means to this bungling leadership.

By now, I’m quite certain that readers now have a clear look at where we are and where we’re going, regarding our household budgets. Let’s look now at the military and strategic issues mired in the quicksand of this ill-advised war.

By any standard, this war is not going well for the US. Israel, who had a legitimate cause for attacking Iranian military facilities and senior leadership of the theocratic terrorists in Tehran, has a strategy with outlined objectives. They are succeeding towards their objectives. The US, still without a shred of explanation as to why we’re involved in Iran at all, is failing because, they seemingly have no strategy. This is apparent in a wide variety of ways.

While that we continue to bomb Iran, the American people want to and deserve to know the objectives, the costs, the status of events and when and how, we exit the war with the region or global security situation intact. Bombastic Easter morning and expletive-ridden rant by a desperate POTUS, is demonstrable of leaders like Hitler in WW II, as his precious Third Reich was crumbling. His sanity was long gone, his military depleted beyond recovery and Germany was largely in shambles. If Trump’s ego cannot handle any version of “losing,” he needs an exit strategy right now. There isn’t one at this point.

The damage to the world’s gas can, the Persian Gulf cannot recover in weeks or likely months. The shipping through the Straits of Hormuz, is entirely under the control of Iran. Reporting shows that they still retain a little over half of the munitions such as rockets, drones and other missiles. All are capable of shutting down the Straits, should their new leadership demand it. Now that the Suez Canal, another regional waterway is under the guns of the Houthis, across the Bab al-Mandab Strait that controls Red Sea access to the Suez Canal. If we recall last year’s war on the Houthis, we did not necessarily win there either, after having to accept a 2025 ceasefire agreement brokered by Oman, and that only protected US vessels. The Houthis, longtime allies of Iran remain at war with Israel over Gaza and recently announced that they would support Iran in the war against the US and Israel.

"On November 19, the Houthis hijacked a commercial ship in the Red Sea and have since attacked at least thirty-three others with drones, missiles, and speed boats as of late January 2024. As a result, major shipping companies have stopped using the Red Sea—through which almost 15 percent of global seaborne trade passes—and have rerouted to take longer and costlier journeys around Southern Africa instead. The situation has resulted in heightened shipping and insurance costs, stoking fears of a renewed cost-of-living crisis."

- Conflict in Yemen and the Red Sea
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Center for Preventive Action
- February 28, 2026

Between the Bab al-Mandab Straits and the Hormuz Strait, Iran can now exercise majority control over these waterways, both critical to the global economy. Add to these threats that both Russia and China are now assisting Iran against the US and Israel in a variety of ways and which includes targeting information about US and friendly forces, and it’s not hard to see the potential for wider global conflict. The US is now alone. Our traditional allies such as NATO, have quite logically remained out of the war, other than in minor support roles.

"The United States will start to move stealth cruise missiles from global stockpiles to use in Iran as the conflict in the Middle East continues to escalate, Bloomberg reported on Saturday, after President Donald Trump declared Tehran's capabilities had been "completely decimated."

According to Bloomberg, the U.S. issued an order to pull from the Pacific stockpiles at the end of March, matching moves by the administration to move other assets previously deployed to the region, such as the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system from South Korea."

- US to Commit High-Grade Weapons Stockpiles to Iran War—Report
- Newsweek Magazine
- Peter Aitken 
- April 4th, 2026

To make matters worse, we’ve now expended more of our mission essential Tomahawk cruise missiles in five weeks of war with Iran, than we did throughout all of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This is a severe depletion of our stockpile of munitions and since we have already borrowed much of the Indo-Pacific command’s stockpile, this leaves us uncomfortably unprepared to deal with any serious Chinese adventurism, including their stated goal of taking Taiwan by 2027. While that NATO is committed to Taiwan, most of NATO’s current focus is on defending Europe from Russian aggression and due to Trump’s visceral disdain for NATO, probably without US assistance. This makes for a bit of a “perfect storm” opportunity for Xi to achieve China’s decades old goal of reunifying China with Taiwan.

As discussed in earlier parts of this series, India is remains an unknown quantity in this global equation. Modi’s India has been a great friend to Putin, especially in regards to helping him evade sanctions on Russian oil. India has recently purchased top-line Russian fighters while also doing some hefty business with Russia’s arms networks. In fact, just last Friday, India approved a “massive $25 billion military modernization package that includes procuring new air-defense missile systems from Russia as well as remotely piloted strike platforms and transport aircraft.” Although India has deepened her military cooperation with the US and Israel for the past decade, India goes where it’s best for India, not necessarily as an ally. She is perfectly capable of juggling these awkward relationships for her own benefit.

India has the world’s fifth largest economy, despite not having ample fossil fuels to fully drive her large manufacturing sector. Like China, India has invested in a large port near the Pakistani and Iranian border, largely to facilitate the required oil to drive their manufacturing sectors. In return, both India and China help Russia and Iran to evade sanctions on oil purchases. Neither can afford to lose Iranian oil. As the fighting continues in the Persian Gulf and with both the US and Iran threatening infrastructure in and around the Gulf, both China and India have very real concerns about the stability of Persian Gulf oil supplies. Both require oil imports to drive their large manufacturing sectors. Should both or either suffer from insufficient energy sources, it would impact the global economy even further than it already is because of the war. So far, it would seem that Russia is the only winner at the moment, and this is due to dramatic increases in how much a barrel of oil sells for during this war crisis.

I’ll wrap this section up with the so-called “elephant in the room,” which is Trump’s unhinged and expletive-laden rant on social media, Easter Sunday morning. He followed his bizarre rant with a serious threat to bomb Iran’s bridges and power-plants and has set a deadline for 8 p.m. EST tonight. As expected, Iran responded to such a threat by threatening retaliation against the infrastructure of other Gulf States. Trump and his handlers have painted America and her people into a deep dark corner, with few positive options. Sustained attacks by Iran against oil and other infrastructure in places like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait etc. would dramatically increase the amount of time to restore any semblance of a normalized Strait of Hormuz.

Summary

Last evening I was listening to Senator Elissa Slotkin discuss different aspects of the war’s threat to the global economy. A former CIA Officer, Slotkin knows her stuff and has also spent operational time in the region. She stated that if the war stopped tomorrow, it would be 2027 before oil production and shipping returned to pre-war levels. The bottom-line to this is that US fuel prices will remain high and that inflation will remain a threat to our household budgets for the ensuing future. This is what matters most to Americans already stressed by current inflationary trends and the administration’s perpetual chaos.

Still, we must also not forget how edgy all of the world’s superpowers are at the moment. Russia is still being humiliated and depleted by Ukraine’s military, China is undergoing a purge of senior military and CCP leadership and India is stuck between supporting her manufacturing by continuing to help Iran and Russia evade sanctions, while deepening her interests in Israeli and US cooperation. This plus an ever desperate Trump, stymied in his dreams of controlling Gulf oil while disassociating the US from our NATO allies, is by default, a destabilized and dangerous world. Add to this that inflation costs for working Americans are driving deep and committed unrest here at home, means that we all must be ever vigilant in our resistance.

Taking control of our government after the midterms will be our chance to stabilize our republic. This must be followed urgently with restoring a capable and prepared national security community. To be blunt, Americans will both have to pitch in, and be patient as we reconstruct our nation. There are nor will be any quick fixes for the oversized quilombo left by this administration and the Republican Party.

As we can see from all of the data and information included in this essay, the world’s in a fragile state, with wolves at every door. Unity, integrity and enduring persistence are the answers to the threats discussed. We’ve been through worse and can do this, which is a message not often heard in these dark times. As anyone who has ever played or worked on a team knows, even the toughest goals can be satisfying, so long as there is infinite teamwork involved. For two hundred and fifty years, we’ve taken on the hardest jobs and mostly succeeded. There’s no reason to believe that we won’t this time around. One of our Revolutionary War heroes, John Paul Jones laid some of the groundwork for how, with one simple but iconic quote; “don’t give up the ship.” Real American patriots never will, whether it’s a warship or our beloved ship of state.

Onward,

Paul

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TAT readers,

This is a tough essay to write but someone must tell the truth about the grotesque and proverbial incompetence of the DNC. I don’t say this as a partisan but simply because the DNC is the only organization with the checkbook and reach, to fund and support the resistance, which is a non-partisan movement. I am avowedly against even the concept of political parties, but our republic is hanging on by a thread and someone must lead. Ken Martin and his DNC crew are not the ones to do it.

The overwhelming majority of their so-called “playbook” is one of those types of books we all read to help us get to sleep, uninspiring, tepid and devoid of anything that heals the decades long DNC malaise. I’ve covered this before in an “autopsy” essay on the loss in November of 2024, and a follow up last July. There has been an absence of leadership or innovation from the DNC in the 16 months since the last presidential election. Their work should have begun on November 6th of 2024, however there is scant evidence in the public arena that the DNC even still exists.

As most readers know, I’ve spent a career in the influence profession, mostly in counterterrorism and geo-strategic campaigns. I’ve researched, strategized, planned, executed and assessed influence campaigns, and often where people’s lives were at stake. I know what we all should have seen months ago and yet, I see little or nothing of any of it, even until today.

The DNC is nearly absent from the influence battlefield. I am though proud of the many volunteers, rally attendees and heroic Dem congressmen and women, exhaustively informing and reporting to us via events, videos, hearings and news reporting. They cannot do it alone. Without leadership though, competence in campaigning, analysis of target audiences and funding, even the expected gains in November will pale in comparison to what could be achieved. If the Trump administration and enabling spineless Republican congressmen weren’t so horrific and treasonous, there would be no resistance movement at all.

Many of the my comments in the body of this shorter than normal essay, will be sharp and succinct, because if we don’t poke DNC leadership in the hindquarters with something sharp, they’ll continue wringing their hands and wasting your hard-earned dollar donations again on 1990s campaigning. The GOP has a well-funded, aggressive and take-no-prisoners campaign organization and, they play for blood. They are 16 months ahead and control our government. Even in the children’s story the Tortoise and the Hare, at least the tortoise began the race at the same time as the hare that he ultimately defeated. The DNC hasn’t left the starting line.

Now, let’s get this essay away from the starting line.

Onward

The following will focus on four primary failures of the DNC:

1. Failure to even have a narrative of their vision for the midterms. Make no mistake about it, political campaigns are Narrative Warfare or NW for short.

2. Failure to have an offense

3. Failure to amplify all of the good being done by those making a difference

Before beginning, we must acknowledge the reasons that the resistance is far behind the GOP’s juggernaut of influence.

1. The MAGA GOP controls the government and has legislated voter suppression and gerrymandering for nearly two decades.

2. The GOP will use any means to win, regardless of legality.

3. The GOP has exercised immense coercion over reporting media with major mainstream news already cowering under the pressure.

4. The GOP-led US Congress has a long track record of enabling nearly any “emergency powers” for Trump and henchmen to deploy armed thugs into our streets, therefore intimidating and frightening

   opposition voters from voting.

5. They control or extort most of the elite wealth crowd into supporting them.

6. The DOJ will protect them and in most cases, so will our current SCOTUS

7. They have a 16 month head start

   

There are more items to list but I suspect you get the point by now that we are in a deep hole and with only our hands to dig out with. Still, part of American identity is to succeed as an underdog. It is simply part of who we are and this has been a reliable identity trait from the very birth of our nation. We were overwhelming underdogs in 1776 when we took on the globe’s premier power, Great Britain. Americans root for the underdog in sports, movies, books etc. We the people revel in the challenge and the midterms are no different. The excitement in the rallies such as last Saturday’s, is a strong indicator of how taking on great power, supercharges us.

1. Failure to even have a narrative of their vision or related supporting narratives for the midterms.

   We must have a narrative about what we want, how it helps restore democracy, how we will go about it, how our movement will help the American people, and that narrative must be honest and not the standard “promise everything” and backpedal later. After a couple of decades of bizarre conspiracy theories, false promises, miss and disinformation, the American people are fed up with the BS. We want straight talk, not bluster and BS. For example, “No Kings” is a good message but messages wither and die in time, unless they are connected to narratives. Without a core narrative, messages have the life-span of a fruit fly.

   What unites us is a common and age-old American narrative, that so long as we’re united, we can overcome any hurdle. This makes part of our resistance narrative, the fact that we’ve overthrown abusive kings before. We know we can do it and that is our resilience going forward. Since well and professionally crafted narratives trigger deeply embedded identity, it becomes essential to have a unifying narrative. This is why those shouting things like “blue wave” or “go Democrats” are defeating the cause. The narrative required to overcome our long odds, must include everyone, regardless of their political affiliation. If not, the underdog narrative won’t work against a deeply entrenched fascist party like today’s GOP.

   

   There is no such narrative at the moment and in fact, there are no established leaders either. Without a unifying narrative, the GOP will use messaging again to divide and conquer the resistance, just like they did in 2024, when they used the war in Gaza, to divide the Democrats. They used the Bernie Bros in 2016 to split the opposition. It’s up to us to make sure this doesn’t happen. That’s why I have been so opposed to progressives leading so many of the rallies. It’s not that their causes are not worth it, but in an election that requires middle America to come together, progressive issues in the lead, puts off independents and Republicans crossing over for this one election only. Unity is above all else until the Trump-era GOP is no longer a viable party to most Americans.

2. Failure to have an offense

   So when I was growing up, Baseball was America’s national sport and for many, still is. Any Little Leaguer knows that you cannot win a game, with defense alone. You must score runs. At the moment, the resistance is playing only defense and no matter how good a job we’re doing, we cannot win without scoring. Not only can we not win without offense, we still must play defense concurrently. Yes, multi-tasking is the answer. The question is, who will do what? This requires strategy, organization and the ability to tailor both to individual races, regions and causes. This requires expertise in analysis of individual races in different parts of the country.

   

   The past election, the left failed miserably by trying to use the same messaging across the nation. Sure there were great crowds for VP Kamala Harris, but how did that speak to voters in very different states. I can assure you as a Texan raised in the Midwest and after spending the first two plus decades of adulthood in California, canned and standardized national messaging would have failed in all three. People and states have their own unique identities too. Speak uniquely to the local identity, not what works at the national level.

   As a Texan now, I know how poorly past Democratic messaging has worked in Texas. If the DNC doesn’t know how, then they should get the hell out of the way and just pay the bills to people and candidates who do. Again, I’ll use Texas as the example. James Talarico is rocking Texas and his style which is very different from other candidates, is rocking the Texas GOP’s world. They are off balance and the usual anti-Democratic propaganda and lies they have used for decades, is useless against him. If the national party meddled in his campaign and demanded national messaging, the magic he’s creating would evaporate overnight.

   

3. Failure to amplify all of the good being done by those making a difference

   Every day I scan mainstream news, social media, and scour websites that allow me to “take the pulse” of what’s occurring around the nation and the world. Every day I see videos of fierce resistance by the Democrats in congress, calling out Republicans consistently lying, stonewalling, breaking the law and violating our constitution. Where the hell is the DNC in making these heroic battles for law, order and morality into national stories? As the old saying goes, “the silence is deafening.”

   When competing in Narrative Warfare, silence or being reactive only, is tantamount to losing. The GOP has dominated national narratives for a couple of decades while the Democrats sit around with their hands in their pockets. In NW whenever something occurs, you must be first out with your narrative, in order to establish the meaning of whatever occurred. If not, the opposition sets the national narrative. In between events, you must sustain the core narrative of the campaign itself. Again, the DNC is silent on both accounts. Due to their silence, the media picks up the narrative of the GOP instead. After all, they have to write about something.

   

   A perfect example of this was during the 2024 election cycle. The GOP droned on and on about the southern border and inflation. What they promoted was just as dishonest as their utterances today, but without anything from the DNC, the false narratives dominated anything the left said in a counternarrative. For the record, counternarratives alone, are as described in the last paragraph… a commitment to losing. We are now 16 months into having zero offensive narrative. This is an enormous DNC, self-imposed obstacle to overcome.

Summary

My friends and fellow Americans. We have the numbers, the motivation and the historical DNA to be the successful underdog in this campaign. I am not suggesting the DNC has no role, but if they won’t listen and learn, they need to get out of the way and let others lead. There are ample options in and outside the Democratic Party. What we’re up against is pure evil and I don’t joke about evil. What the resistance needs now is their checkbook and their network. If they are willing to remove their heads from where they don’t need a haircut, by all means, give them a leadership role, but not exclusively. After all, our resistance to the current evil regime is in fact, non-partisan.

Having been to a few of the large No Kings rallies, I’ve talked with a wide variety of Americans with varying political beliefs, who simply want our constitutional republic back. We want law and order, our constitutional rights, to be equal before the law, to be safe from adversaries like Russia, to be able to afford a respectable life and home as the fruits of our labor, a future that we don’t have to fear, a life free of monopolies and their oligarchs, and most of all, free from tyranny. This is what our nation was founded on.

American history is full of heroes who refused to give up on our fledgling republic. They defied the odds and carved out a nation unlike anything that came before. Despite our flaws, we’ve moved those founding principles forward in order to embrace the “better angels of our nature.” That spirit of liberty is not lost, but obscured by those that would divide us for their own purposes. I don’t know about you, but President Lincoln’s iconic quote at Gettysburg, still inspires me to protect and defend that “more perfect union” referred to by President Lincoln in his first inaugural address.

Let’s get the DNC back into shape and continue to unify the resistance with all Americans, regardless of party.

Onward

Paul

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TAT readers,

Welcome to the end of the week and as every week has been under the current regime in Washington, it has been just plain nuts. This often makes it challenging to settle on one topic but today’s Part V in the series I’ve been writing on the war in the Gulf, has had so many new negative twists and turns, I thought it warranted attention. Although I am beginning this Friday afternoon, you likely will not see it until Sunday, because I’m tracking some developments that may be worth including. The reason for narrativizing this update is twofold; first, the war with Iran is so geo-politically complex that it is difficult to give readers a concise picture by only looking at a handful of high-profile news articles and secondly, most media reports a story, leaving readers scratching their heads trying to understand what a handful of main news stories means to the big picture. The way to share meaning is via a narrative, not a story.

The reason I used the word “narrative” is because that narratives are made up of stories. An overarching narrative expresses the meaning of all of those stories when assembled. When all we get from news here in the west are independent stories, we need a narrative that helps us to interpret the meaning of all those stories when used collectively. Think of it as each chapter of a book being a story but the whole book is the narrative. Admittedly an oversimplification but still, this explanation is easily accurate enough for all of us today. For those who wish background reading from Parts I - IV, the links to the first four parts are below.

• Part I: The coming war with Iran - by Paul Cobaugh

• Part II: It's just always about the oil - by Paul Cobaugh

• Part III: The Iran War: Criminal Malfeasance

• Part 4: the War with Iran leads to grave consequences on a local and global scale

Poor reporting, focus on selected stories, pervasive hidden agendas from media owners, board rooms and investors, etc., are additional hurdles for readers to conquer. Pervasive false narratives in reporting saturate mainstream news, such as this being entirely Israel’s fault or that we are in some way, “winning.” Then there’s the absurdity of the White House claim, that there are no terrorist threats at home and the economy isn’t threatened. Americans and our fellow global citizens have a right to know about an event that threatens to acutely disrupt the global economy and has the potential for a much wider global war. If this sounds like a lot and that it’s complicated… it’s because it is.

As they say, “the first step in a lengthy journey, is the hardest,” so let’s take that first step together.

Onward

When the US joined in Israeli Defense Force or IDF’s war with Iran back on February 28th, the entire conflict took on an entire new meaning leading to significant chaos in world markets, manufacturing, security and countless other issues that daily impact every single one of us. It has only gotten worse since, except for profiteering oil companies, those well-connected enough politically and defense contractors. There is now little to no reason to expect any easy exit nor normalcy in the near future, even for years. This war has also accelerated the global geo-political realignment which began at the end of the Cold War and now sees the US allied with adversaries while ignoring or abusing our actual allies, most notably NATO. As Putin declared when congratulating Trump post election, his election was the beginning of a “new world order.”

The US entering the war as an active participant was doomed from the very first minute of the conflict. Once an important stabilizing influence in the region, imperfect as it was, the US and our current administration’s arrogant and critically stilted and negligent planning, disregarded countless factors and the hard lessons learned from what most now call, “forever wars” in the region. There was zero planning to protect our Gulf and regional allies or more importantly on the domestic front, for protecting America from what every CT/ Counterterrorism expert already knew decades ago, that Iran’s Qods Forces would impose more painful lessons on all they see as adversaries, especially the US. Furthermore, the administration refused to even consider the global economic destabilization that any entry-level intelligence analyst could have predicted.

The bottom-line is that no matter what happens in the ensuing few weeks, months or otherwise, the fallout from these failures will impact us and the world, long after the major combat activities stop. The intel preparation required to embark onto such a weighty mission or war, should have been extensive and deep. The planning should have woven that intel into every facet of the campaign plan. There was no apparent or reported effort to do so when it came to joining Israel against Iran. Commanders and allies would have been briefed so that they were also prepared for the certain Iranian responses. This did not occur. The most important thing about the planning is that we still do not know why, we are at war in the first place.

The administration has trotted out several ridiculous explanations for why we are at war, but they rarely even make it through a news cycle before they are exposed as ridiculous and utterly dishonest. The so-called “imminent nuclear threat” from Iran is laughable at best, and insulting to any thinking American at worst. The claims of Iran having an ICBM, InterContinental Ballistic Missile with the capability to carry a nuclear warhead that could reach the US, equally laughable. The “regime change” motive also exists without any visible means of support. US and Israeli intelligence circles had already forecast that there was little chance of regime change via such a war as we are currently witnessing. Here we are a month into this war and the administration remains incapable of expressing a coherent thought as to “why” we are at war. In Part II of my series, I discussed what I still believe, that we went to war for oil.

Now, with 60% of Americans opposed to the war and believing the war to not be going well, Trump and his administration have defaulted to his standard ploy of blaming others for his mistakes. Earlier this week, Trump even blamed Pete Hegseth for the war. Should things continue to worsen, look for more scapegoats to appear in our headlines.

“I called Pete, I called General Caine, I called a lot of our great people … and I said, ‘Let’s talk. We got a problem in the Middle East. We have a country … that for 47 years has been a purveyor of terror. And they’re very close to having a nuclear weapon. We can keep going and get that 50,000 up to 55 and 60, there’s no end. Or we could take a stop and make a little journey into the Middle East, and eliminate a big problem,’” Trump said Monday at an event in Memphis.

“Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up,” Trump continued. “And you said, ‘Let’s do it.’ Because you can’t let them have a nuclear weapon.”

- Trump Throws Pete Hegseth Under the Bus as Iran War Spirals
- The New Republic
- Malcolm Ferguson
- Monday, March 23, 2026

Iran possesses the capabilities to inflict a great deal of pain on her enemies, including the US. Drones, cyber attacks, proxy forces, affiliation with US gangs and of course, state-sponsored terrorism. Iran has a long and often successful history of wielding painful lessons to those she believes her enemies. Their methods include but are not limited to the types of threats listed above. We must take these threats seriously but to date, not a single public advisory has been issued by DHS or the FBI according to Bruce Hoffman, a senior and deeply experienced US counterterrorism expert.

The bottom-line assessment is that the US homeland, is largely unprotected due to Trump administration purges, firings and senior experts leaving DHS, the FBI and other key roles in our national security. Even the FBI’s Iran Threat page on their website hasn’t been updated since the beginning of the current administration.

"DHS officials have not issued an updated National Terrorism Advisory since the most recent one expired in September. And they have not published a Homeland Threat Assessment, an annual report which highlights “the most direct, pressing threats” to the nation, since President Donald Trump took office."

- DHS silent on threat status amid war in Iran, spate of violent acts
- Washington Post
- By Maria Sacchetti
- March 16, 2026

It’s not just the threats to the homeland either. Every single day, the situation becomes more dire for the US, our allies and especially the Gulf oil states, who suffer attacks nearly every day. This does not bode well for the driver of the global economy. In a March 11th assessment by David Lubin, the Michael Klein Senior Research Fellow, Global Economy and Finance Programme of London-based Chatham House, often considered the world’s most respected and non-partisan policy institute and think tank, he laid out some particularly concerning impacts on portions of the global economy, due to the war with Iran. A few excerpts are found below in quotes.

- "The heaviest burden will inevitably fall on the region itself. History offers a guide. During the 12-day war last summer, Israel’s economy contracted by around 1 per cent in the second quarter. If the conflict is short-lived, a fall in output of a similar order of magnitude would seem plausible for both Israel and the Gulf economies. 

A more prolonged conflict would almost certainly inflict a deeper economic wound. Output would be disrupted, investment postponed and tourism curtailed. Iran’s economy will be hit even harder. Based on the impact of wars elsewhere, GDP is likely to fall by more than 10 per cent – although Iran itself last published official GDP data in 2024."

- " Around a quarter of global seaborne oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, along with roughly one-fifth of liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipments. Any disruption to transit through this narrow chokepoint has immediate consequences for global energy markets. Unsurprisingly, oil and gas prices have jumped since the conflict’s start as shipments through the Strait have collapsed." 

- "The scale and persistence of the energy shock will ultimately determine the macroeconomic impact. For energy-importing economies, the main transmission channel is likely to be via inflation. Higher oil and gas prices raise the import bill faced by households and firms, squeezing real incomes and eroding purchasing power."

- "A more severe scenario in which the conflict persists for several months could see oil prices rise to around $130 per barrel before declining in the second half of the year. At a global level, the hit to growth would be modest, though the impact would be felt unevenly across regions. The euro-zone economy would probably contract in Q2 and then flatline over the second half of the year."

- How will the Iran war affect the global economy?
- Chatham House
- David Lubin
- March 11th, 2026

Remember that Lubin made these statements two and half weeks ago, and at the time believing the duration of the conflict would be relatively short. This is no longer the case. He referenced a couple of key items regarding an extended war. First, he believed that a relatively short war would allow the US economy to absorb much of the negative aspects of an economic disturbance. One aspect of even a minimal disruption, was that further Federal Reserve cuts to interest rates would likely be curtailed, therefore costing Americans more of their household budget.

One element of the economy that we don’t often hear about is, “the consumer sentiment. index?” This index begun and sustained at the University of Michigan since 1946, is a monthly look at and measurement of consumers’ feelings about their financial security or outlook towards the future. In an Investopedia article just this past Thursday, it revealed that the index dropped 6% in March and is now at its lowest point since December. This bodes poorly for the economic outlook, now undercut by the disruptions from the Persian Gulf war.

The longer this war continues, the worse it gets for much of global economy and ours here in the US where inflation already has households making tradeoffs just to make ends meet. This is reflected the now tanking approval ratings of the administration and the GOP-led US Congress, who has refused to rein in their leader. Even recent polling on the war shows that only 20% of Republicans support putting troops on the ground.

Last night, the Washington Post issued a story that is disturbing, especially to those of us who have “been there and done that,” in our forever wars. I will let the headline below speak for itself.

To make matters worse, the IDF in headlines from the Times of Israel says that Israel has nearly completed its assaults on critical targets in Iran. This leaves the US to go it alone on the ground in Iran. The Trump administration claims this to be a limited effort of a few weeks but then again, we hear different messages from them on a near hourly basis. Again, our strategic objectives are still cloaked in the fog of utterly dishonest and dangerously incompetent senior leaders at the Department of Defense, Department of State, the IC/ Intelligence Community and of course, the White House.

As for the status of the war itself, I refer you to the screenshot below from the Institute for the Study of War. These “key takeaways” are part of a daily issued full report on the war and highly recommended reading. The link is in the caption below the graphic.

At the rate of burning a billion dollars every day, seriously depleting our high tech munitions stockpiles and having to replace them by taking them away from our Pacific Command whose job is to hold China at bay, leaves the US vulnerable to our most capable foe. This raises another critically important element of Iran now having a “trump-card.” Yesterday, the Houthis in Yemen and at the southern end of the Red Sea, which is the Southern mouth of the Suez Canal in Egypt, announced that they were rejoining the fight in support of Iran. The Houthis, a smaller and different version of Shia Islam are dedicated allies of Iran.

We all recall how much damage they did to commercial shipping by targeting vessels attempting to pass their vantage point Bab al-Mandab, a shipping chokepoint not dissimilar from the Strait of Hormuz. Simply put, this means that Iran and their ally the Houthis have the ability to shutdown commerce in two of the world’s most important commercial waterways. So now, the US will be alone and without allies in the ground war, unless our NATO allies who have been horribly abused by both Trump administrations, change their minds. This isn’t likely based on Trump’s refusal to explain what his objective are to them nor us.

The final point is a big one that makes our situation and the world’s, more precarious. China and Russia are both now assisting Iran, to include targeting information against US troops on the ground within the region. I will go into more depth on this critical factor in a later essay and for the simple reason, it will take another whole essay to put this threat into perspective. In the space of fourteen months, Trump, enabled by an entirely spineless and sycophantic GOP congress, has managed to isolate the US from our traditional national security allies.

For all intents and purposes, when Israel is finished with their objectives, we will be alone, despised and painfully dangerous to the entire globe. I have plenty of words to describe this unnecessary predicament but none are printable in decent company. I don’t wish to tempt myself any further with adding those words and will now end this essay.

I wish everyone an amazing Sunday and look forward to sharing again next week.

Cheers,

Paul

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TAT readers,

My apologies for only bringing you one long essay last week. It’s been a very busy few days around here due to some professional writing and work on my next book, “Conned, the brainwashing of America in the Trump era.” Today’s essay is a topic that is both our most significant national security threat and also, a subject of importance in that upcoming book. Without solutions to dealing with miss and disinformation, there is almost no hope for restoring our republic after the Trump/ MAGA GOP era. Let that sink in, frightening as it is. It’s not just what most call propaganda either. A nation that intends to defend its values, requires a resilient moral spine. That spine is built onto knowing and standing up for what we honestly believe in, not the fake values of those who intend to dismantle it.

The reason for this topic today is that we are well into the midterm election cycle and are awash in miss and disinformation, “fake news,” conspiracy theories, false narratives, deep fakes etc., etc., etc. The Pentagon and all of the other IC/ Intelligence Community entities, as well as law enforcement are clueless about how to manage this acute threat. Research dollars are pouring into big defense contracting firms and have been for years, falsely believing that technology can solve our problems. It cannot and as our headlines tell us, neither fake news or the sales pitches of defense contractors selling snake oil will either. There are important supporting roles for technology but at this time, it cannot provide anything of significance to easing this threat. In other words, we are largely defenseless from foreign and domestic influence operations if we are to depend on the US government.

The answer is not more technology, but understanding how to build resilience to the miss and disinformation intentionally tearing our nation apart. Many experts call this “inoculating” ourselves against dishonesty, much the same way we inoculate ourselves against the threat of virally spread diseases. In my line of work, such an inoculation is also a subset of my core expertise, Narrative Warfare, and also the only way to effectively achieve such an inoculation.

"Narrative Warfare is the battle for control of the identity of audiences and based on their specific identity.

- Cobaugh
- 2025

What the heck is resilience?

In its simplest form, resilience is the ability for humans to experience hardship and have the skills, aptitude, mental and physical health, to endure through difficult challenges successfully. This is my own personal definition because many discussions regarding resilience pertain to healthy mental endurance and revolve around maintaining cognitive competence due to cognitive issues such as Alzheimer’s, dementia or some sort of other mental illness or challenge. Resilience applies to nearly everything humans experience throughout their lifetimes.

Every time that we see communities come together after and during a national disaster, we are watching resilience in action. In recent years though, that unity has been shaken by the now political overtones of responses. When no politics or agendas are present, a unified community restores their lives because they are neighbors. This is a beautiful and moving display of true American resilience, or at least it used to be. Until this administration, supporting national disasters wasn’t a partisan issue. Now this administration punishes so-called blue states while supporting the opposite and even they receive far less support. This is an insanely un-American approach to unity.

As historians will tell us, the US has come together to always face common enemies. The one glaring exception was when Republicans sided with Russia when they attacked our 2016 elections and have continued ever since. This demonstrates the depth of their brainwashing. Recent research in this area of research indicates that facing a common enemy may no longer bring us together against a common foe.

Prominent examples of resilience in US history can be found in long-term battles with enemies both foreign and domestic, as well as natural and human created disasters, such as what Tom Brokaw spoke about in his iconic book, The Greatest Generation. The Greatest Generation or Americans born between 1901 and 1927, endured drought, The Great Depression, WW II, the threat of nuclear war and the growing pains of Americans learning to fight for and improve the access to the civil rights constitutionally guaranteed to every American.

" Tom Brokaw, an NBC Nightly News anchor, gained profound insights into the valor and sacrifices of these individuals during his visits to Normandy Beach for the D-Day anniversary. He coined the term "Greatest Generation" to honor those who endured the Great Depression and fought in the war, highlighting their resilience and dedication to rebuilding post-war America."

- Brokaw Honors the Greatest Generation
- EBSCO
- James Tackach
- 2023

It has in many ways, been the same although on differing scales, for every generation of Americans. Though born with our birthright of the highest of human principles, we are still working towards what the Preamble to our Constitution called, “a more perfect union.” Only resilience and a dedication to our radically progressive founding values or what some laughably call, “woke,” have seen us hold our union together throughout the Civil War, survive multiple depressions and recessions, fight wars, fight for and pursue the Civil Rights revolution of the 60’s. The lesson here is that adhering to our founding moral principles, temper our resilience in the same way that fire tempers steel. When we survive adversity together via our extraordinary founding values, we become personally and collectively, more resilient. History doesn’t lie.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

- Preamble to the United States Constitution

When it comes to the role of resilience in combatting miss and disinformation, this critical but largely overlooked element is for all intents and purposes, overlooked by national security leaders putting all of their eggs into the one basket called, technology. The past couple of decades, those selling technology exclusively as the answer to all of our problems, have failed to produce anything of value when it comes to protecting Americans from our epidemic of false narratives, overtly dishonest propaganda and fake patriotism. Rather than admit that technology is not the solution they promised, the national security community continues to promise miracles they cannot perform. This leaves us largely unprotected.

There is no substitute though, for the hard work required to cultivate your own cognitive resilience and that is oriented towards protecting you and yours from our current scourge of dishonest and cowardly media. In our political arena, the preponderance of propaganda comes from the political right, although there are a handful of serious issues on the left as well. This pits fake values vs our true values and creates conflict between Americans. The divisiveness is intentional. Today’s GOP has been in lay terms, “conned” by the staggering invasiveness and steady stream of propaganda infecting every nook and cranny of our society. Whether we call it fake news, false narratives, conspiracy theories, lying, propaganda etc., makes no difference. The agenda of all of these terms are the same, to sell us what is good for them, regardless of what happens to us. For the rest of this essay, I will mostly use the term, “propaganda” for simplicity.

Now that we understand resilience, its critical role in our nation’s survival and how much it informs how we see the world, it is now important to talk about how we can all contribute to rebuilding resilience in the American people. Once we begin to rebuild the true values of our republic, it will take little to see our historical resilience once again blooming like flowers in Springtime. The fake-patriotism, Oligarchical dominance and White Christian Nationalist values will begin to recede as easily and naturally as does a simple wave upon the shore.

The mechanics of such a transformation are part of the built-in mechanics of being a human being. Those mechanics are part of “who we are” or what is termed our NI or narrative identity. Narrative is about how we see the world around us and is based on our own specific identity. As Americans, our collective national identity lives within nearly all of us in some manner and can be triggered easily, simply by reintroducing Americans to the truth about our national values and history, rather than allowing propagandists to sell us on historical revisionism, such as the Holocaust Denialism prevalent in far right circles.

"Holocaust Denial, also known as Holocaust Revisionism, is the attempt to deny or trivialize the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany against Jews and other groups during World War II.

For an internationally accepted definition, see the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Holocaust Denial and Distortion."

- What is Holocaust Denial?
- Museum of Tolerance

These agendas, as we can easily see from our nationally tragic experiences with the FOX News types of media, who have slowly conditioned their audiences over decades, to accept their fake-patriotism, often via historical revisionism and overt lies about what our constitution does or does not say. This is why today’s Republican Party goes to great lengths to hide truth, publish and amplify lies and false narratives, censor truth-tellers, coerce media to do the immoral bidding of an immoral administration and associated Republican Party. Even these thoroughly unethical and anti-American tactics, are no match for resiliency, if someone knows how to operate with Narrative Warfare.

To date, even our national security community has no real understanding of this professional specialty called Narrative Warfare, largely because they have bet all of their success, on the preposterous assumption, that technology can do all and be all. This approach is to me, is criminal negligence and now the survival of our republic hangs in the balance. The solace we can all take in our survival though, is that it is, we the people that can do what is required to reverse the current fascist actions and desires of the Republican Party.

How we save ourselves by rebuilding our resilience

We can take some comfort in the fact that it is relatively easy for all of us to effectively contribute to rebuilding classic American resilience. Those contributions may seem small and insignificant but this is not how Narrative Warfare works. In the case of rebuilding our traditional American resilience, it requires tapping into a pre-existing identity of Americans that recognizes and celebrates our true traditional values. The entire remaining Republican Party that continues to support and vote for GOP fascism dressed up as patriotism, no longer operates on their pre-Trump era version of American identity. This newer layer of identity may be seen as a shield of sorts between their ears, designed to keep out truth. Finding a way to tap into and trigger that old identity hidden behind that shield, is the key to success. Every small contribution from each of us, makes a difference, even if it is only with one voter.

Our family, friends and neighbors that have been conned with endless assaults on their old identity are not quite as brainwashed as most may assume. Remember the laughably pathetic crowds for Trump’s birthday parade, lousy showings at campaign events and the losses of the candidates that he’s backed, well I do too. The Republican grip on power is vanishing faster than a coherent thought in Trump’s mind. They are terrified and in response are doing everything possible to “rig” the midterms via voter suppression, intimidation, radical gerrymandering etc. This should calm some of the terror Republicans are attempting to wield against us with ICE and putting armed troops into our streets. They are far from invincible and are in fact now… vulnerable.

Most Republicans understand that their crazy is beginning to embarrass and humiliate themselves as GOP policies are now affecting them negatively too. They may be less vocal but the majority will continue to put party over country. There is though a small percentage of GOP voters who have become so disillusioned that they will join our fight to restore our nation. We must not marginalize these fellow citizens. They are doing something incredibly difficult, reconciling their former MAGA identity with reality. At the moment I would assess that our cause is very far from hopeless and until November, it’s an “all hands on deck” moment. Our tasks in recovering our resilience may be easy, but without overwhelming support from honest Americans, even an easy task may not succeed. This makes this essay a call to action.

The operative question now is, “how do we go about rebuilding our national resilience to threats and evil?

• We must not remain safely silent when our local school districts ban books and institute religion in public school classrooms. We don’t have to yell and bludgeon our opponents like our republican neighbors. Quiet unity that represents honest Americans regardless of their political views, sends a powerful message difficult to refute via the normalized verbal and physical violence common to MAGA crowds. The issue is right from wrong and whether actions conform to our constitutional guidelines.

• We must especially target the Republicans in public office when they begin repeating the insane conspiracy theories to justify their fascist policies. Again, this is best done on a bipartisan basis. As I have been saying since November of 2024, targeting Republicans in office whether on Facebook, the local news, via their local offices etc. is a powerful threat to their electability. Dragging local media to witness your side’s perspectives while they stutter their way through their dishonesty, makes a huge impact on voters, pro and con. We should all remember our successes in booting these rabid far-right ideologues out of their own townhall meetings in their districts.

• Demand answers from all elected Republicans. There is nothing at all American about Republicans showing up in congressional and state legislatures, refusing to answer the simplest of questions that they are obligated by law to answer. If they cannot answer or refuse to answer, ask your community a simple question, “why should anyone vote for them if they refuse to honor their obligation to inform their constituents.

• Believe it or not, a 2,500 year old philosopher named Socrates, devised a method for deepening effective dialogue that works very well when engaging a Republican voter on controversial topics. This is called the Socratic Method. It is still taught today, especially in law schools, and is considered an effective method of sorting out underlying beliefs and assumptions. If a student or someone engaged in a Socratic-styled conversation cannot justify and defend their assumptions, they tend to begin doubting their pre-existing assumptions. The advantage of asking questions in a non-threatening manner, often is enough for them to speak freely on what they assume their beliefs to be. Via self-discovery by way of the questions, it is possible for them to even begin to question themselves, seeking an honest answer.

  • “The Socratic method uses questions to examine the values, principles, and beliefs of students. Through questioning, the participants strive first to identify and then to defend their moral intuitions about the world which undergird their ways of life. Socratic inquiry deals not with producing a recitation of facts... but demands rather that the participants account for themselves, their thoughts, actions, and beliefs... Socratic inquiry aims to reveal the motivations and assumptions upon which students lead their lives.”

    • Socratic Method: What Is It and How Can You Use It?

    • Jack Maden

    • 2021

• Focus on expressing what those opposing the regime in power believe in, rather than just pointing out what’s wrong with the other side. No one responds well to constantly being verbally punched in the nose, for expressing their beliefs. Over time and with sustained engagement, it can be surprising at how people will find truth, whether they admit it or not. This doesn’t preclude employing honest but controlled anger and frustration. We all have a great deal to be furious about when the administration perpetually violates laws and ignores both our constitution and court orders. Still, we must do what the DNC refuses to do, provide a platform for restoring our values, our constitutional rights and what our vision for the future is.

  • There are countless Democratic officials doing heroic work narrating what is occurring in congress, but without a platform, how can we ask Americans to chose ours, when it does not even exist?

• Don’t waste your time on the aggressive and loud deeply MAGA Republicans. We all know the kind. They are fully radicalized and incapable of rescue from their brainwashing. This is a fact fully understood by professionals deeply experienced in radicalization, ideology, extremism and violent extremism. Once a person crosses a certain threshold where they publicly espouse and act on their immoral and un-American beliefs, they rarely recover, no matter how good an effort is made by professionals, to unravel their psychological dedication to an aberrant ideology.

• Above all, we must all raise our voices and in unison whenever possible and absolutely not from a partisan position. Nothing will make an ideological opponent dig in more deeply than employing partisan imagery such as “blue wave” or any other partisan flag-waving. Remember, the so-called resistance is devoted to restoring American values, not converting the nation into Democrats. I have long adhered to a personal mantra that says, “do the right thing and the politics will sort themselves out in your favor.”

• Finally, don’t mistake my recommendations for carefully building resilience, for weakness. We must remain firmly dedicated to truth, our true national values, being equal before the law and most insistently, fighting back passionately when confronted by the regularly occurring unconstitutional actions by the Trump administration and their GOP enablers.

  • Displays of patriotism, discussing history via credible sources, our constitutional rights as Americans and telling the great stories throughout our history of those who courageously defended our nation’s founding values. We will get nothing but the opposite from Trump-era Republicans. Let them make a mockery of themselves, by trading in ignorance and arrogance. The more people listen to truth and reason, the more that will actively support our cause.

  

The recommendations above take time as does all successful Narrative Warfare campaigns. We have scant time left before the midterms and must get moving now. I’m also certain that my fellow Americans are beyond creative and will find more pathways to building resilience among their communities. Those with technology and social media skills, create campaigns to tell the stories of Americans standing up for our nation and its values. Go to Republican elected official’s accounts and use those little emoji’s effectively. In a time when social media is the weapon de jour of authoritarian regimes, beat them at their own game.

Social media data can play a significant role in success. Every time someone dislikes the posts of MAGA republicans, it adds up and makes the opposition either double-down on their nonsense, or makes them reconsider another approach. During this administration, Republicans are taking a beating on social media except within their closed echo chambers like Truth Social. I can assure you that the data-crunching henchmen of GOP influencers, pay strict attention to regular assessments of how well they believe they’re doing. At the moment, those assessments are doing more poorly, by the day.

We don’t win battles or wars by becoming our opponents. The resistance to violent, deadly and unconstitutional ICE operations in our cities have clearly demonstrated that massive, unified and peaceful resistance is a winning strategy. The people of Minneapolis and Portland especially were perfect examples of how much power that “we the people” have. It’s far easier to be fearless, when we are not alone in resistance.

Summary

Although this has been another long essay, I still find it a most important topic in supporting the restoration of our republic. The equation is fairly simple but requires great collective effort from all Americans who simply want our nation back from the clutches of tyranny. The logic trail goes something like the following:

1. We are a nation of brilliant founding principles that are designed to celebrate “inalienable human rights.”

2. Those principles have long been the primary strength of we the people.

3. The Republican Party in the Trump-era exists on fake American values and bizarre conspiracy theories.

4. Our true values are far stronger and deeper rooted than any of the fake religious and American values used to brainwash republicans via dangerous influence campaigns over the past forty or so years.

5. Our founding values are the braided steel spine of American resilience.

6. Successfully rebuilding that spine via stories, engagement and mass protests celebrating those true values by default shores up our resilience.

7. Throughout our history, that resilience has paid off in sustaining our republic and helping us move towards that promised, “more perfect union.”

8. Only when we remained silent during over thirty years of FOX News and similar GOP media brainwashing of our families, friends and neighbors, did our resilience fade and lead us to our current Republican threat.

9. We all hold the power to contribute in large or small methods to rebuild our natural resilience.

10. We must not fail now, or risk our legacy of liberty being erased from the history of the world.

    

I believe in you, our values and our future. All that we must do now, is be willing to play our part as courageously as those who have ensured that legacy for two-hundred and fifty years.

Onward my friends, ever onward,

Paul

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TAT readers,

I’ve been doing deep-dive research regarding the imminent threats to our midterm elections and which I was hoping to publish today, but today’s headlines about the US involvement in the war against Iran will preempt that essay until later, hopefully this week. I view our midterms as a “make it or break it” event in US history and so deserves my undivided attention. Today’s war news though distracted me and demands that I must once again state some critical points that dispel the false narratives about our involvement, Israel’s rights to defend herself and the disturbing commonly held beliefs about Israel being some sort of genocidal ogre. Today’s brutal critiques will greatly offend many on the so-called “both sides of the aisle” in congress and the US electorate.

For long-time readers, you will see several links to previously published essays as “background reading,” however the essay itself, will be an entirely new narrative surrounding a critically destabilized Middle East. Many would find it distressing for me to attack “both sides,” but I do not write for profit. As the name of this publication states, telling the truth about our most severe national security threats, is my sole objective. Truth is often offensive to those who’ve been seduced by false narratives and the overt lies of powermongers such as this administration, their sycophantic political party and their oligarchical enablers.

"Truth is, all known facts from credible sources, presented objectively and in context.

- Cobaugh
- 2023

It is not just the Republicans either. The left, especially the progressive wing, have also partially succumbed to false narratives about Israel being a genocidal actor. There is plenty of blame to go around, here’s the spoiler alert; we cannot solve for any solution in the region if we do not look at truth, rather than false beliefs about the region and its people. It’s the same as a math problem because you cannot just shove the numbers you like into an equation and expect to answer the problem correctly. If you want a solution, employing all available truth is the only effective manner of achieving one grounded in reality.

Some of the issues to be discussed in today’s essay include but are not limited to the eight points listed below.

1. Israel has been under assault by her neighbors and others in the region from the very minute that she became her own state in May of 1948. Israel has the same rights as any other nation to defend herself.

2. The claims of genocide in Gaza are laughable at best and dangerous at worst. They are perpetuated largely by powerful nations looking out for their own interests, not the Palestinian people. By my last calculations based on a variety of sources, there were between 35,000 and 90,000 Hamas and other militants in Gaza pre-war. Since no reporting entity differentiates between civilian and combatant deaths, it would be insane to believe the numbers quoted by known propaganda entities like the Hamas Health Ministry. Add to this Hamas’ use of innocent Palestinians as human shields, bait etc. and a far more accurate picture comes into view. War is hell and while I don’t agree with every tactic employed by Israel, professionally speaking the IDF has operated far more in accordance with international law, than not. As they say, “the devil is in the details.”

   

3. The Arab Gulf oil States are to my mind, deeply invested in sponsoring and sustaining these false genocide narratives. I’ve explained the general antisemitism from mainstream media reporting on casualties until I’m blue in the face. No one in the mainstream western press wants to solve the problem of accounting for the ratio between combatants killed and civilians killed. Most western reporting has been borderline antisemitic in their reporting on the plight of Palestinians for decades.

4. Palestinians also have a right to exist, but are far more oppressed by surrounding Arab states and Iran, who continue to use them as pawns in their pressure campaign to paint Israel as the only bad actor. Most Israelis and Palestinians have long been amenable to a two-state solution and there are ample examples of collective Israeli and Palestinian efforts for peace. Where is this reporting?

   

5. Iran has been oppressing her citizens for decades and this also includes the period under the Shah, as much as under the Extremist, theocratic regime in power since the 1979 revolution. Iran has also been the most dangerous global, state sponsor of terrorism for decades.

6. The Trump administration’s approach to the Middle East is no different to their approach to domestic policy, as that it is transactional, in support their favorite oligarchs, which in this case is, “big oil” and designed to afford geo-strategic realignment more favorable to Russia, China and India than US and allied interests.

   

7. US political interests by both parties are in fact undermining any potential opportunity for peace between Israel and the Palestinian people. This is due to overreliance on the false narratives being wielded by both parties for their own political pursuits.

8. The absence of any credible historical understanding about Israel and her neighbors by most Americans, has led to the acceptance of false political narratives disseminated by political partisans.

9. Another significant false narrative complicating the situation revolves around the false narrative that US Christian Nationalists actually care about Israel’s Jewish population. Christian Nationalists care only about the role that the land of Israel plays in their Book of Revelations and “End of Times” prophecies.

Below is a link to a Special Edition of TAT about the war in Gaza and links to many of the twenty or so reports I wrote on the war in Gaza and that provide not only my sources, but my professional insights based on a career in Counterterrorism and deep experience in the region.

• TAT bi-annual journal: Israel, Gaza, Hezbollah and the Middle East

The truthful narrative of what is occurring in the Middle East. First up, a short history of Israel’s battle for survival.

As we move into the narrative portion of this essay, I would like to remind everyone that I’ve written often and deeply about Israel, her enemies, the war in Gaza and just within the past two weeks, a four part series on the war in Iran and the region. These are well over twenty essays and which I will link to in this essay. The region is so far past any normalized definition of “complex” that I have spent over fifty years researching, traveling in and operating in the region. Even the immense amount of words produced in the aforementioned essays, are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Today’s essay is me telling the story in a more succinct manner, in order to make it more palatable for those who don’t want to read all of the background in the linked essays.

• Part I: The coming war with Iran - by Paul Cobaugh

• Part II: It's just always about the oil - by Paul Cobaugh

• Part III: The Iran War: Criminal Malfeasance

• Part 4: the War with Iran leads to grave consequences on a local and global scale

As is commonly said, the best place to start, is at the beginning. The Jewish calendar year is now, 5,786. Christianity is estimated to be 2,026 years by a modern calendar and Islam, 1,416 years, also by our modern calendar. Scholars will debate all of this but that is immaterial to today’s discussion. There is no doubt that Judaism came first and that both Christianity and Islam unapologetically share much of what is included in Jewish religious texts. All three of these major religious belief systems have had their descendants living in the region collectively, for at least 1,416 years and on the land now known as Israel. All three religions plus several others still live in modern Israel and mostly at peace with each other. So let’s stop the willful divisiveness, most often stirred into violent passions by outsiders.

Islam, controls roughly 99% of the land in the region, plus Iran, a different type of Islam than all of the other Muslim states. Quite literally, those Arab neighbors went to war with the new state of Israel, within minutes of her declaring her independence as the British Mandate expired on May 14th, 1948. The Jewish state is tolerant of all other religions within her borders, and with very few exceptions. Unfortunately, the “Bibi” Netanyahu government is one of those exceptions and is best defined as an Israeli version of MAGA. This means, extreme racism and xenophobia within the far-right political parties making up Bibi’s coalition government.

Israel’s democracy has it’s own distinct flavor and requires a coalition-styled government where many different perspectives of Israeli interests are represented. Bibi is no different than Trump other than being intelligent, an accomplished statesman, intensely military savvy and yes, corrupt as the day is long. Still when it comes to Israel’s defense, he and all Israelis know what it takes just to survive the endless Arab wars and terrorism since May of 1948. It’s part of growing up in Israel that all Israelis are well trained when it comes to protecting themselves and the state. There have been a couple of tragic modern events where national defense failed and those are the October 7th, 2023 Hamas and Iranian massacre. The other was the 1973 war that Israel eventually won, but at great cost to the nation.

What most don’t understand is that the Arab states in 1948 had asked what today we call Palestinians, were asked to leave by the attacking Arab neighboring nations until they had eliminated the Jews and then they could come home. The problem is that those Arab states lost the war. They would try again over and over again for the next 75 years. When outright war didn’t work, terrorism became the tactic de jour and which continues to this very day. Yasser Arafat of PLO infamy was along with his proxies were primary terrorist organizations assaulting Israel during this time period. Iran like most other Muslim states at the time of Israel’s statehood had large numbers of Jewish residents, but after 1948, roughly 90% of Jews living in Muslim lands were expelled, with many moving to Israel.

In my now long lifetime, terrorism has been the primary strategy to expel Jews from their nation, and is now often expressed in the genocidal saying, “from the river to the sea.” Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran and other nations still believe in either genocide for all Jews or their expulsion from all lands considered Muslim. In fact, both Hamas and Hizbollah have long maintained a call for genocide in their charters and founding documents. Israel and Egypt made peace with the Camp David Accords and Jordan has always had a reasonable relationship with Israel, even though other Arab nations have pressured Jordan on occasion to join in their wars against Israel. Palestinians that were originally resettled in Arab nations in 1948 are treated as second and third class citizens in those nations. To add to this Arab bias against their own, it has long been the West who has provided the majority of the aid to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

My first wife who served with me in the US Army, was an Israeli citizen with a Green Card at the time of our marriage in 1976. When first visiting Israel in 1984 to meet her extended family, some lived in the West Bank settlements. This was prior to the first Intifada and when traveling to Arab settlements with her family to do business or shop, the ease of the relationships between both “sides” was inspiring in the sense that, these old foes were working collectively towards peace and cooperation. Sadly, a Cold War Soviet Union, some of the Arab States and their terrorist proxies provoked what became the deep and violent clashes we’ve seen ever since. It wasn’t just the Soviets and Arabs either. These were years when former Israeli General and eventually Prime Minister Ariel Sharon took a hard path towards the opposition. This cost Israelis and Lebanese innocents along with combat troops on both sides horrifically.

The bottom-line to this short and admittedly simplified history of Israel’s survival, must be understood in order to understand what is now occurring in Iran and the region. In other words, Israel’s actions against Iran are far more than justified and to be commended. I wouldn’t even mind if the US supported in every possible manner except participating in actual combat operations, without sorting this out in congress and to the American people first. She is the size of New Jersey and before the 1967 war, was only 17 miles from East to West. Americans commenting without at least understanding these basic and well documented facts, simply have no idea what they are talking about, regardless of side.

The last thing I will say in this section is that I challenge any American to express whether they would be patient for 76 years, if we had neighbors constantly attacking us and terrorizing our citizens, just for existing

Tragically, this portion of the essay that deals with the US stumbling unaware and arrogantly into this war, is far easier to tell. It’s no secret that Trump and his deeply inexperienced cabinet are incompetent on a scale never seen in American history. One of the only qualified but deeply compromised officials resigned this morning, doing all possible to distance himself from this war and what comes next. Joe Kent may have had the experience but he was every bit as dishonest, racist and conspiracy theory oriented as the worst among this entire administration. He knew the lies about the intelligence and couldn’t run away fast enough. Good riddance. There is no longer any hope that someone with a moral spine and experience will sign up for his job. The entire administration, supported blindly by a spineless, Republican-led Congress refuses expertise, only cherishing blind loyalty.

Not one thing has been done to plan for protecting the Homeland from the globe’s most capable, state-sponsored terrorist organization, Iran’s Qods Forces. They and those who came before then have a long track record of heinous acts, dating back to the very beginning of the regime that came to power shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Although Trump claims publicly that we have had no terrorist attacks since the war began, this is a bald-faced lie. There have been at least three US terrorist attacks since the beginning of the war with Iran. The Michigan Synagogue attack, the Old Dominion University attack and an attack at an Austin bar are all related to the wars in the Middle East.

In the Persian Gulf and surrounding region, Iran’s attacks have been merciless and far more capable than our intelligence community recognized. This is nothing new in recent history. This was the same community that believed that Ukraine would fall in hours when faced with Putin’s genocidal invasion. Now with incompetent IC/ Intelligence Community leadership like Tulsi Gabbard at ODNI, John Ratcliffe at CIA, Kash Patel at the FBI and no one at DHS, we are for all intents and purposes, fully undefended from terrorism at home. If fully inexperienced Senator Markwayne Mullin is confirmed to head up DHS, things get far worse.

Terrorism at home is not even the worst of our current situation. The US and global economy continues to suffer the effects caused by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s energy flows. There is no hope in sight for this as that Iran’s capability to inflict paralyzing damage on any vessel attempting to transit the Strait. Markets are rocked daily in some of the world’s most important economies. China and India, powerful manufacturing economies and the second and third largest global economies, depend on a stable supply of energy to maintain their economies. Fuel prices at home here in the states, are pricing workers out of their means to get to work. Diesel, which powers the overwhelming majority of our shipping by truck has gone over $5.00 a gallon, for only the second time in our history.

Americans are suffering from coast to coast are suffering an affordability crisis, that continues to be little more than a talking point to the Trump administration. The administration’s transactional defining trait cares only about their own wealth and the power that comes from it. I once learned an old adage that power is the ultimate goal for authoritarian leaders. This was described as a four-legged stool where money, land, weapons and a willingness to employ them ruthlessly are the legs of the stool. No matter what, these factors define every one of leaders around the world that Trump prefers to our long-trusted allies, such as NATO.

Mentioning NATO is a perfect segue to the next point. Trump attempted to leave NATO during his first term. In the current term, he’s brutality treated NATO allies with rhetoric, assistance to Putin and continued off and on failure to support Ukraine’s defense. He’s abused the very alliance that provided a deterrent against Russian and the Soviet Union since its formation. He’s given Putin relief lately by making it far easier for him to sell sanctioned oil. India under Modi and China are the biggest benefactors outside Putin himself. Russia, cash poor depends on oil and is one of the only significant ways that Putin funds his war in Ukraine. Now both Putin and Trump have gone begging for assistance due to their failure when starting wars.

In today’s ISW, Institute for the Study of War, Special Report on the war with Iran, they make it clear that there are few answers to Iran’s threat to the Strait of Hormuz.

Key Takeaways

"The United States and Israel are currently attempting to use force to prevent Iran from disrupting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. A weakened regime that remains in power after this war would be able to disrupt shipping whenever and for however long it pleases with little effort if its current, relatively limited, strike campaign on shipping proves sufficient to cause the US and Israel to surrender.

A failure to demonstrate the will and ability to deny Iran the ability to disrupt traffic will make it enormously harder to deter Iran from future disruptions. Stopping the war in current conditions would thus represent a major strategic challenge that the United States or Israel would need to contend with in future rounds of conflict with a regime that will continue to be a committed adversary.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed that it struck the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy headquarters in Tehran on March 16. It stated that commanders used the headquarters to direct IRGC Navy forces and plan operations against Israel and other regional countries.

The IDF confirmed that it killed Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Larijani, who was a long-time regime insider and had held many senior posts, in airstrikes in Tehran overnight on March 16 and 17. Larijani’s death likely weakens a key faction in competition with the Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei-IRGC nexus, but it will not end the ongoing competition.

A long-time observer of drone operations in Ukraine suggested on March 17 that the drone footage posted by likely Iranian-backed Iraqi militia front group Saraya Awliya al Dam is consistent with a fiber optic first-person view (FPV) drone. The Iranian proxy group’s decision to advertise its possession of such a weapon would be an explicit threat aimed at the United States."

- Iran Update Special Report, March 17, 2026
- Institute for the Study of War
- Ria Reddy, Caroline Moorman, Adam Fattah, Benjamin Schmida, Avery Borens, Nidal Morrison, Samuel Shafiro, Brian Carter
- March 17th, 2026

Finally, the money we are spending on this war, the deep depletion of our critical munitions, the acutely increased domestic terrorism threats, the now out of control blockade of 20% of the world’s oil and its impact on the global economy along with our ostracization from allies and friends, only serves to significantly weaken our national security, while imposing daily increasing hardship on all here in the states, can only be defined as failure on an epic scale.

Again, I support Israel’s need to put an end to Iran’s offensive capabilities and could have also supported US assistance in a supporting but non-combat role, had the slightest planning been done to mitigate the negative burdens on the American people. No effort at all was made to plan anything but the offensive military action. My support would have also required this dangerously lawless administration, to adhere to their legal requirements under the 1973 War Powers Resolution or Act, which requires them to coordinate with congress and to explain this war to the American people.

"The War Powers Resolution (WPR), first adopted in 1973 over the veto of President Richard Nixon, establishes presidential reporting requirements and parliamentary procedures intended to reaffirm the constitutional role of Congress in committing the United States into armed conflict abroad. The existence of these fast-track procedures provide an opportunity for Members of Congress to obtain a vote on—or more often in relation to—legislation that either authorizes the presidential use of U.S. Armed Forces or directs their removal from hostilities. When legislation has been introduced pursuant to the WPR, the House and Senate have often chosen to structure consideration in ways other than those prescribed by the statute.

Before the President commits U.S. troops into hostilities abroad, the WPR directs that Congress first be consulted "in every possible instance." The WPR further mandates that the President report to Congress within 48 hours of deploying U.S. forces if Congress has not declared war or statutorily authorized the action. The President must continue reporting to Congress at least every six months for the duration of the engagement. Sixty days after the President first reports to Congress (or was required to do so), the use of the Armed Forces is automatically terminated unless Congress has declared war or passed legislation authorizing the action. The President may extend this 60-day period an additional 30 days by certifying in writing to Congress the need for continued use of force."

-  The War Powers Resolution
- Congress.gov

We the American people still have no idea why the administration took this ill-advised action. As I explained in Part II of the four part series I’ve written over this past couple of weeks, I believe this war to be at least partially for oil and to position the Trump administration for further dominance over global resources. After all, Venezuela was about oil as will be Cuba next. Military strikes against targets in Nigeria is also about establishing a pretext for more aggression that leads directly to Nigeria’s oil resources. Columbia who also has oil wealth has also been threatened. We do not pay our military to secure more wealth for big oil. It’s not just oil either as that nations with mineral wealth such as Greenland are also high on Trump’s target list, as are Mexico and Canada, and for the same reasons.

This is the United States of America, not a “Banana Republic” where dictators enrich themselves via tax payer funded aggression. We are designed with checks and balances just to avoid becoming such a republic. Sadly, the Republican-led congress has turned over many of those checks and balances to the Executive Branch, rending it impotent as a check on power. This by the way, is the precise strategy of Project 2025, which is designed to empower the Executive Branch over the Legislative and Judicial. We cannot allow this administration and the Republican Party to take one more step towards their autocratic goals. History is littered with what happens to the people when they lose control of their style of government, to selfish and cruel autocrats or worse.

It will take bipartisan cooperation to rein in the madman in the White House. I hope that the GOP can finally muster up enough courage to do their job and stand up to Trump and his henchmen. It will take more that thoughts and prayers based on their behavior in the Trump era. Believe it or not, this is the short narrative of what you will not hear in much of today’s mainstream news. We all wish for innocent men, women and children to be safe throughout this and future conflicts in the region. We cannot do anything effective if we don’t stop living on false narratives and begin building solutions based on truth. It’s the only way that we can begin forging peace.

Thanks to all for your patience in reading this long essay.

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today’s essay is the fourth in a series that I’ve been writing, ever since this ill-informed and poorly planned war began. I’m talking about the chaotic situation left for all the regional states and economies around the world now subjected to the whims of three despots, Trump, Putin and Xi. The worst possible aspect of this war for US citizens, is the administration’s absolute failure to prepare or even consider a strategy to protect the homeland and our allies, from terrorist attacks by Iranian Qods Forces and their proxies. I have covered a great deal of the reasons for and who benefits from this quest for oil, but there’s one more critical issue that I hope to persuade you to consider, the so-called, New World Order.

At the very beginning of Trump’s current term, the plans were already in place as we can see from the insane claims about Greenland, Canada, Venezuela, Cuba and several other nations. The short explanation is a new world order that is divided up into at least three primary powers with all other nations as “colonies” of the only three fully sovereign nations, the US, Russia and China.

Below are the links and headline graphics from parts 1-3 and tonight is the fourth in the series. Will there be a fifth? Who knows when a selfish and cruel malignant narcissist runs our republic, like it’s his own personal kingdom of serfs. A spineless and complicit Republican Party, are his enablers and are terrified of him more than they are of the American people. It’s up to us to demonstrate to every sitting Republican in Congress with maybe one or two exceptions, that ignoring us invalidates their preconceived notions about who is more of a threat to them, their dear leader, or us at the polls.

• The coming war with Iran - by Paul Cobaugh

• It’s just always about the oil - by Paul Cobaugh

• The Iran War: Criminal Malfeasance - by Paul Cobaugh

Overview

In the long-run, this essay intends to lead readers to understand that there is an enormous geo-strategic shift going on globally. It began as the Berlin Wall fell in November of 1989, and has been evolving far more rapidly since the beginning of the first Trump administration. Yes, this is because whether Republicans believe it or not, Trump and Putin operate like the mafiosos they are, and only acknowledge power and the loyalty of those subservient to them. There’s no mutual respect nor honor in either. With this understanding, let’s go onward towards understanding what this insight means in the already developing NWO or rather, “new world order.” I will use the acronym NWO throughout the rest of this essay. I will also do my best not to repeat too much from parts 1-3 in order to reduce the lengthy amount of reading that was included in the first three.

I first began writing about this NWO in December of 2024, the month after our last presidential election. I had already understood the earlier signs due to professional work regarding terrorism, Russia, China, India and related issues. There are a wide spectrum of national security issues relating to each and, in how they cooperate on those issues. From roughly 2014 on, the NWO has been slowly but steadily inching forward until the beginning of the current Trump administration. Now, the machinery of consolidating the new spheres of influence for each, is in full motion. Yes, this makes matters urgent at this time, as the core of global commerce begins shuddering under the strain caused by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz to oil transport.

This strain is far greater though than just commerce. Considering Iran’s centric-role in regional conflict, often with Russian assistance prior to the Ukraine war, her terrorist allies such as Hamas, Hizbollah and several other Sunni Arab Islamic violent extremist groups, have the potential to disrupt far more than just commerce… globally. Pre-Trump era allies are now rethinking and backing away from the US with Trump’s loyalty to and alliance with Putin being the primary reason. The chances that old alliances will resolidify in any meaningful way in the near future are as they say, “slim and none.” The Republican administration and cabinet officials are seeing to this by enabling him and his handlers. Yes, Trump has handlers.

What we are witnessing is a rather clever strategy that places Trump at the top, in my opinion as a figurehead only. It’s no secret to anyone that he is quite often, a fool babbling about sharks, electrocution, werewolves and other bizarre topics. He’s not only suffering cognitive decline, but it’s not a long fall because he never really ascended to any intellectual heights. This should be crystal clear to any serious adult. His mental decline is accelerating before our very eyes, and in the eyes of the world. The GOP and anti-democracy and oligarchical Heritage Foundation is running our government. It is supported by some of the world’s wealthiest oligarchs and their lesser billionaire allies. Reporting on Trump’s phone call with Putin yesterday, sounded like maybe Putin may be calling some shots.

Putin and Trump’s mafioso-themed “loyalty” means that Putin put him in office and helped him regain office via influence operations, often in arms-length coordination with the Republican Party. That crime family so-called “honor code” means that Trump now owes Putin. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence or SSCI which is the premier intelligence committee in congress, said so in their three and a half year, Republican-led investigation which produced, a five volume report on Russian Interference in our 2016 election. Volume five, the Counterintelligence report is beyond damning and although heavily redacted, clearly demonstrates to connectivity between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian intelligence.

The administration’s ongoing sellout of the NATO beginning with his first term and now worsening by the day, plus Trump’s alliance with Putin along with the support of the brainwashed Republican Party in place, now there is freedom for Putin and Trump to make the moves on the chess board, that they’ve been planning for over decade.

Next we’ll look at the primary players and some of their high-profile moves on the global chess board, in this critical geo-strategic paradigm shift that favors only the strong and ruthless. In fact, Putin’s favorite view of sovereignty is now fully embraced by the current administration.

"As the war progressed, justifying it as a “battle for sovereignty” against neocolonialism seemed to gain favor among the Russian elites and with Putin himself. For example, at the end of April 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, “Russia’s military operation in Ukraine contributes to the liberation of the world from the neocolonial oppression of the West” (Kommersant.ru, April 30). In June, Putin spoke about the need to “ensure state sovereignty.” He stated that “a country can be either a sovereign or a colony,” and without sovereignty, “it has no chance of surviving in a tough geopolitical war” (Izvestia, June 9).

In late July 2022, at a forum meeting of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, Putin reiterated that “the neocolonial model of the dominance of global elites is over” and “only truly sovereign states can ensure high growth dynamics” (Interfax, July 20). It is significant that propaganda sites, while developing the Russian leader’s theses, came up with the justification that the war in Ukraine has turned out to be vital for Russia’s “sovereignty,” since it gave rise to a global conflict with the West. This conflict, they allege, creates opportunities for abandoning offshores, “giving Russia a chance to get out of the fetters of economic enslavement more quickly” (ЕADaily.com, August 1)."

- New Concept of ‘Russian Sovereignty’ Is Inextricably Linked to the War
- Jamestown Foundation
- Ksenia Kirillova
- August 15th, 2022

An admittedly over-simplified explanation of this quote is; Putin believes that only global powers have the right to full sovereignty while that every other nation is a “colony” that has no sovereign rights. Putin only sees Russia, The US under Trump and potentially Xi as fully sovereign states. India I believe, may be playing a unique role at the moment, that aligns herself with Putin and Trump, therefore eventually surrounding and slowly bleeding China into submission. Yes, I know all of this sounds a bit far-fetched, but for those who’ve followed these nations and their machinations for a while, will have seen the very same indicators that I have.

Let’s begin at the beginning of this current Trump administration.

As Putin congratulated Trump on his election win, he also discussed a NWO. This is nothing new for Putin and he’d been publicly discussing this since at least 2022. In September of 2025, Putin, Xi and Kim of N. Korea met while China held a military parade to demonstrate China’s power and key relationships. Since Putin’s military humiliation in Ukraine, he’s had to go, “hat-in-hand” begging for weapons, ammunition and far more. For decades, Russia was seen as the senior partner in Russian/ Chinese opposition to the West, but with Ukraine decimating Russia’s military, even with Chinese and N. Korean assistance, the hierarchy has become inverted. Xi is now on top and Putin is the junior partner. Kim Jong Un, is more of a tag along, that is occasionally invited to sit at the adult table.

Still, all is not rosy between the three and there was no public mention of Trump during the festivities. But on the international scene, Trump’s moves more often than not, demonstrate that he’s playing a game that he believes only he and Putin know the rules to. The Republican-led congress has long hobbled Ukraine’s chances to reclaim their land from Putin’s occupation forces, by simply denying to provide aid. This of course at the behest of Trump. Trump, despite his tough talk about pressuring both sides to come to a peace or ceasefire agreement, is regularly upstaged by Putin.

This introduces us to India’s role. India has done as much as anyone to assist Russia in evading sanctions on her primary cash cow, oil. On many fronts, Modi has been elusive regarding Russia but has supported Putin in a wide variety of ways. Just in the past couple of weeks, India has purchased more of Russia’s top aircraft among other weapons related business. China, India and Turkey are the primary violators ensuring that cash continues to flow into Russia’s economy, often on life-support.

The other issue where Trump’s decisions have assisted Russia’s economy, is by joining Israel in this war against Iran. As we all know when we fill up our vehicles at the gas station since the war started, fuel prices have skyrocketed. This means profits skyrocket for the oil providers, therefore showering Putin’s coffers with a windfall of cash. When it comes to doing business with India, I like to say it’s caveat emptor, or buyer beware. India’s claim of non-alignment is a lot more fragile than at any time in my lifetime. She has her own problems with China, although there have been a few signs that there is now better dialogue between these two, millennia-old rivals. Where India lands regarding her alignment, matters a great deal to the global economy and global security paradigm. As a long fan of India’s democracy, I hope to see her emerge from this chaos, stronger and more democratic than Modi seems to like.

Last but not least, let’s take a look at how I saw our most serious national security threats last December, shortly after the election. My PowerPoint skills are not the best as you can see in the graphic below, but it does a fair job of illustrating the overlapping threats and players.

The only major change I would make is to remove India as a threat at this time. I still cannot get a good feel for where she will end up in the big picture. The way the war is reported in the US, it’s very difficult to get a solid grasp on things but fortunately, I delve into foreign news, trusted allies and reputable think tanks. Nearly all mainstream reporting, especially in the US is negatively impacted by Trumpian threats demanding compliance with administration narratives and denunciation of naysayers. Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert are prime examples. I lost my faith in Reuters and the BBC after their overt antisemitic reporting of the war in Gaza. I do follow select journalists and depend on the Associated Press for overall reporting. Plus I have former national security colleagues that I often talk with.

Of course as long as this administration remains in power with control of congress, chaos will rule alongside the devastation in the GOP’s wake. All global markets are uneasy. Bonds are up along with precious metals, telltale signs of nervous investors. Inflation continues to rise at home with no end in sight nor any effort by the administration to tame it and with most of the burden falling on small and medium size businesses and families. The recent jobs report was beyond dismal and with the GOP still protecting pedophilia and defending the murder of US citizens and others during their brutal and unlawful immigration roundups, Americans are restless and frustrated. Those of us who’ve seen what the GOP and Trump were up to long ago, are far past frustrated.

Any upheaval during or surrounding November’s midterms will signal a major shift in US policy, making having a relationship with the US, even more like a yo-yo than anything remotely stable. Trust in the US is gone, our treasury is being looted and there is little to no law at the top. For those who understand our nation’s true identity, this is not acceptable and we will ensure that we put a stop to it at the polls. Disruption of those polls via draconian GOP legislation or force, will light the fire of rebellion. This must be avoided if at all possible because with predators like Putin and Xi out there, a divided America looks like prey. Our national security has been so devastatingly compromised by leadership of this administration, even a stable America will take at least a generation to fully recover.

The bottom line to Putin, Trump’s and maybe Xi’s NWO is that it will require us to reestablish a trusting relationship with our allies after retaking congress in November, in order present an opponent that Putin and Xi will be wary of. There is a fragility to any such chances unless we rid our government of any vestiges of Trump era Republicans and their spineless fake-patriotism. Then the rebuilding can begin in earnest. Until then, I will be blunt, it will be a tough row to hoe, but not outside the limits of what Americans have proved they can do throughout our history. We may not have gotten things right as often as we should have, but now we have no choice but to fully immerse ourselves in this fight for our future.

Onward

Paul

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TAT readers,

What follows is something I wrote for family and friends on Facebook earlier today. I am also working on another full essay regarding our current and developing national crisis regarding the Iran war and where this is heading. I will likely not finish and publish this one before late tomorrow morning. That essay is the fourth in the series on this topic. The prior three were the following:

• The coming war with Iran - by Paul Cobaugh

  

• It's just always about the oil - by Paul Cobaugh

  

• The Iran War: Criminal Malfeasance - by Paul Cobaugh

Introduction

The past couple of days and like many of you, I have been keeping an eye on the exposure of FOX News, caught lying again. To be frank, they and their ilk do this every day and all day… every single day of the year. I found myself thinking about this from a much broader perspective. The outcome of those thoughts, was this short article posted for family and friends on Facebook. As much as I detest the site, it’s also one of the best ways to cautiously keep track of family and friends spread all over the country and the world.

I also call out FB by tagging the NSA or National Security Agency, the FBI, NATO, The EU or European Union and Interpol. I do this to make them aware of the overwhelming number of bots, fake accounts, technical surveillance and data theft that FB and META allow to attack their subscribers. Other major platforms such as LinkedIn, X and of course the Truth Social and similar, are just as bad if not worse.

The article below, are those thoughts about where America is while under the influence of professional influence operators, that saturate these platforms and with little or not protection from the owners themselves. Their stubborn “profit at any cost” attitudes are not only illegal in many instances, but un-American and disastrous on countless levels. The only way this stops, is for all media consumers to do their own homework and source what is and is not true. The current right, makes no effort at all. The left, has lesser but also dangerous adherences to false conspiracy theories and narratives as well.

Only we can save ourselves and the republic.

The article that initiated this short essay was; Fox News apologizes for showing old video of a hatless Donald Trump at a dignified transfer ceremony, from the Associated Press.

Family and Friends,

Just to clarify what this Associated Press article is demonstrative of, is not a one-off occurrence. If it were up to me, I’d list Fox News as a State-Sponsor of Terrorism. This case is but one tactic that they and similar outlets like NEWSMAX, use to lie to their audience. I have been researching FOX for over a decade and hold them in the highest contempt for undermining and assisting in the Project 2025 strategy, to dismantle our constitutional republic.

Another wish would be to hold them criminally liable for hundreds of thousands of US deaths during the height of the COVID pandemic. They lied about vaccines, masks, reopening America too early etc., etc., etc., and were the primary narrators of the deadly evil of the first Trump administration’s immoral, for profit handling of the beginning of the pandemic. Meanwhile, it was a FOX News policy that vaccines were required for employees.

They were the primary narrators outside of Trump and the Republican Party, for the insane, “stop the steal” movement that ended in a violent insurrection on January 6th, 2021. They did this by syncing their conspiracy theories with Russian support and amplification of the conspiracy theories about the violent insurrection. They paid a nearly one billion dollar fine for those lies and are still settling and negotiating with other claimants.

The aforementioned issues are but a tiny sampling of their faux news coverage, that shaped a couple of generations of Americans, to believe in the false patriotism of “God, guns and Trump.” Republicans have been conned by over thirty years of subtle and eventually overt dishonesty about everything American. This is why so many Republicans are functionally ignorant about our constitution, the laws based upon that sacred and brilliant document. Now today, Republicans cheer when this evil administration regularly violates our laws and the constitution that is the foundation of those laws.

Now, with our style of American Democracy hanging by a thread, it’s time for republicans to acknowledge they have been conned, and rejoin our union as described by President Lincoln during his Gettysburg address as; “that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Many of you will shout and throw metaphorical rocks at these statements, being highly insulted. I don’t care. Many of you will do the same because I have not singled out the opposite side of the aisle as well. While that I don’t endorse all that the other side strives for either and especially the way they go about their interests, they are not a threat to our Union. They keep their interests between our constitutional guardrails. Republicans do not.

Our republic wasn’t born attempting to squash debate and insist that we all believe exactly the same. That pursuit would be ideological in nature. Our nation created a framework where we could dissent against the government, each other or other nations and raise our voices in protest if we disagree. That’s the American way, not imposing the ideology of Authoritarianism, White Christian Nationalism, Oligarchy and Political Violence, or as I call them, “The Four Horsemen of the MAGA Apocalypse.”

Last but not least, our brilliant and courageous founders, only expected that we be well and accurately informed, as citizens of our republic. Please think on this as you reevaluate your relationship with news media. The belief on the right and some on the left, that there is no “credible source” for media, is pure willful ignorance.

If we survive the current Trump/ Republican administration, we have enormous work ahead of us to rebuild faith in our style of government. That cannot be done on the backs of conspiracy theories and lies. It is up to every single voter whether they are willing to ignore our founders or to believe in anti-American propaganda from the current regime.

In all sincerity, I hope that this short article will afford readers a bit of insight regarding the dreadful threat we face from those willfully un and misinformed.

Back with the next essay, probably now tomorrow morning.

Paul

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TAT readers,

Someone must tell the truth about the threat of terrorism imposed onto all US citizens, due to the malfeasance of this administration. Mind you, I’m not a lawyer or any legal expert, but like all of you, I can read and understand what I read. I use the term here today, because it so accurately describes the behavior of this administration in all respects, concerning the unconstitutional war in Iran. I welcome any honest attorney to correct me if I have erred. While that I hope and pray these attacks are fewer than anticipated by true counterterrorism experts, of which I am one, every serious professional in my world is saying what I will say here today, in one form or another.

Overview

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who was fired yesterday, utterly failed in her mission to protect the homeland from terrorism. This includes the now acute threat from forward operating Iranian Quds Force cells globally, especially here in the US and the West in general. Tangentially, she deliberately failed to address the most dangerous and lethal domestic terrorism threat to the homeland for the past 20+ years, domestic far-right extremism.

The graphic comes from the “mission” page of DHS.

As someone who has seen many of the effects of terrorism up close and personal, watching the US remain willfully defenseless against what will likely follow, is maddening in the extreme. It’s not just DHS though. The FBI has a primary role here as well, which begs the question, why did Kash Patel abruptly fire critical Iran experts working in counterintelligence, just days before the war began? I don’t blame agents and analysts either as that with the wanton purging of expertise across the board by this administration, what these fine Americans work on, is not in their control. The epic failure to prepare for terrorism at all, is just one more failure of leadership that has come to define this Trump and Republican run administration.

The threat from Iranian terrorism is in my professional opinion, acute. When such a threat appears, it requires educating and informing the American people in a manner such as what we all recall, post 9-11. In fact, DHS was born of that tragic terrorist attack. I discuss DHS and the FBI, as that they are the most recognizable agencies that most are familiar with. Twenty-two different agencies were woven together under the DHS umbrella. Still as Harry Truman’s sign on his Oval Office desk said, “the buck stops here,” meaning that whoever sits in the Oval Office is ultimately responsible. Within agencies, just like businesses, the Secretary, Director, CEO etc., is also ultimately responsible for what occurs under their leadership. This would also include senior leadership from the NSC/ National Security Council through the IC/ Intelligence Community and DoD, who bear responsibility too.

Next up, explaining the Iranian terrorist threats, who will action them and how we must help each other when our current administration is incapable of and unwilling to help us.

First things first, let’s look at who is most likely to be the primary threat.

The Iranian conventional forces are poorly led and poorly trained so these are not the primary worries. The primary Iranian forces are the multi-branch IRGC or Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. They are technically, a special operations corps and are often seen as a business organization, due to their tenacles being in much of what goes on in Iran and the outside world. Their missions range from protecting the homeland, border security and to several other functions. At this point there’s only one small, allegedly 5,000 to 15,000 man force that is the major concern regarding terror and that is the Qods Force, of which there are highly specialized operatives, teams and missions.

The Qods Forces, are responsible for activities outside of Iran, while the rest of the IRGC, stays home. Frankly, I believe the Qods Forces to be incrementally larger, due to complicit foreign actors and a vast operational network. These are the extremely dangerous threats we must mostly focus on here within our homeland. It’s important here that we better understand these operatives in order to better understand how to defend ourselves.

"The IRGC began sponsoring nonstate armed groups in the region in the 1980s, first deploying in the Iran-Iraq War. The Quds Force emerged as the IRGC’s de facto external affairs branch, and it has developed ties with armed groups from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Yemen, and elsewhere, providing them with training, weapons, money, and military advice to project Iran’s power abroad. Some of these groups frequently operate independently of Iran and each other, but Tehran views them as part of an anti-West “axis of resistance” under its sway. Experts say Iran has attempted to strengthen cooperation within this alliance in recent years.

By fostering these groups, Tehran has sought to export its revolution and deter aggression from Western countries and its perennial enemy Israel. The Lebanese movement Hezbollah, for example, shares Iran’s hostility toward the United States and Israel, which occupied southern Lebanon when the group was founded. The 1983 bombings of the U.S. embassy and the U.S. Marine Corps and French paratrooper barracks in Beirut, as well as the assassinations of various regime opponents, have been attributed to Iran and its proxies, namely, Hezbollah. Additionally, Western and Middle Eastern intelligence officials have tied the IRGC to the 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, though Tehran says it wasn’t involved."

- The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
- Council on Foreign Relations/ CFR
- January 30th, 2026

As you can see in the quotes above and below, the Qods Force and their extensive foreign network, are likely the most actively aggressive, state-sponsored terrorist and subversion threat on the planet. They were the architects of the October 7th massacre of Israelis that began the war against Hamas in Gaza. The same applies to Hizbollah in Lebanon. Always active and largely independent groups of these terrorists have embraced their work and demonstrated increased trends of operations over the past 10-15 years. Their primary prevailing trends in their operations are; assassination, surveillance and abductions, but never underestimate their willingness to operate as required to protect the interests and strategic objectives of the Iranian Regime.

"Over the past 40-plus years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has targeted dissidents, Western opponents, Israelis, and Jews in assassination plots, abduction plots, and surveillance operations that facilitate both. Iran has carried out such external operations around the world, in countries with both strong and weak law enforcement agencies, border crossings, and intelligence services. It has done so consistently over the years, including at times and in places where carrying out such operations could undermine key Iranian diplomatic efforts, such as negotiations over the country’s nuclear program. This study, based on a dataset of 98 Iranian plots from 1979 through 2021, maps out key trends in Iranian external operations plotting."

- Trends in Iranian External Assassination, Surveillance, and Abduction Plots
- Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Matthew Levitt
- February 2022, Volume 15, Issue 2

At this point, I believe everyone gets the point, Iran has plenty of highly qualified and experienced operatives globally, especially here in the West. Any further discussion of their capabilities and tactics are better left alone at this point. The bottom-line to all of this is that these forces have been a serious but managed threat at home, for decades. What changes things now, are a combination of invading their homeland, supporting Israel and the ever-present ideological triggers for vengeance or in Shia Islamic terms, defense of Islam. To be clear, this is not all Iranians nor Muslims. Like all religions, there are extremists willing to kill for God. The Iranian regime at home has been painfully and brutally oppressive from the very beginning, hence building fury against them from the majority of Iranians.

A simple oversimplification is that Islam is broken into two primary sides, the Sunni side, which is the overwhelming majority of Islam. For example, the AQ, ISIS, Al Shabbab and all of the other extremist groups we’ve been at war with, are Sunni. Shia Islam is centered on Iran and these two have been at each other’s throats, for roughly 1,400 years. There are several subsects as well, which are best understood along the line of, Christianity, which has countless different forms, but generally fall into two general categories, Catholic and Protestantism, with countless subsects. Like Christianity, when faced with an outside foe, they unite, although this has had innumerable violent disagreements over the millennia in Christianity. Islam is the same.

The global 1979 Islamic Revolution began with the overthrow of the Shah of Iran. Sunni Muslims then followed Iran’s lead and began rebelling, in many areas of the region and North Africa, among other more isolated regions. This is what threatens today, that these two will unify again, in some form of anti-Western aggression, though not likely operationally. This means that we now face the possibility of two threats, one Sunni extremist and the other, Iranian Shia extremists. To date, the Gulf Oil States have managed to keep cooler heads among the masses, but it would take but a small spark, to turn all of this into a nightmare scenario. This requires a great deal of deep explanation but I’ll stick to the most prominent current threat to being Iranian retribution until or if I see more significant indicators of such a threat.

Should DHS funnel greater resources to address counterterrorism due to the Iran strikes?

"Yes. The United States is in an unprecedented dangerous situation when the Iranian regime’s desire to retaliate for the war and the killing of Khamenei could surface now or at any time in the future. For the regime, revenge has always been a dish best served cold. For example, Iran initially struck back after Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Musawi in 1992 by bombing the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. It then staged another attack in that city over two years later: targeting a Jewish community center, killing eighty-five people and wounding over three hundred others."

- Iran and Terrorism: What the U.S. Strikes Could Mean for Homeland Security
- Council on Foreign Relations
- Bruce Hoffman
- March 5th, 2026

Now here’s the problem and what makes all of this intense for our homeland. Iran as discussed has the will, resources, expertise and ideological commitment to defend their Shia version of Islam and their homeland. Fatwas have been issued and these are better paid attention to than not. Fatwas are religious edicts issued by clerics to give direction or clarification to Muslims regarding an issue they are unsure of. In the past few decades, those Fatwas have been mostly in our news when they are placed on specific persons, groups or nations. A prominent Iranian cleric has indeed issued such and edict. Such an edict “ups the ante” on this arrogant gamble of a war by the current administration.

"Iran's Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli issued a fatwa calling for jihad and the shedding of the blood of Donald Trump and Israel amid escalating tensions in the region. Amoli said the absence of Iran’s late supreme leader Ali Khamenei is “unbearable,” and framed the conflict as a religious duty. Amoli described the confrontation as a struggle tied to the defense of the nation and invoked the concept of jihad, saying that the current situation requires sacrifice and resistance. The statement comes at a time when tensions in the Middle East are already at a boiling point following missile attacks, airstrikes, and naval confrontations across the region."

-  Shed American Blood': Iran's Ayatollah Declares JIHAD Against Israel & U.S. In Address To Nation
- Times of India
- March 5th, 2026

Wars can be well managed in the Middle East, as President Herbert Walker Bush, demonstrated in a masterclass during the first Gulf War to rescue Kuwait from Saddam’s bloody hands. It hasn’t been done since. Bush senior was probably as well qualified as anyone to pull together an Arab coalition along with our traditional allies, to fight a limited war with a limited objective. He knew the region, had strong relationships with rulers and deep business ties. That is how this war should have been handled, at least by the US. Israel has well-justified reasons for rendering Iran’s military infrastructure obsolete, at least for a while.

As for select types of support for Israel, I see justification but then again, of all the justifications from the administration, this is not one of them. As discussed in my previous essay this week, the current war is again about oil for Trump and his cronies, just like Venezuela. This also ups the ante for Iran and her best friend, Putin. With oil spiking in profit, Putin’s genocidal war against Ukraine, is getting a big cash injection. In turn, he’s been feeding target information to to Iranian forces.

We are all already frustrated that oil is skyrocketing, hence worsening our already unacceptable affordability issues. This gets worse from here on out or until there is an agreement of some type. Even an agreement will not translate into things returning to “normal” expediently. That’s just not in the cards due to Trump’s erratic and selfish greed and the Iranian regime’s hard lines. They don’t have to capitulate so long as they have substantial Qods Force operatives willing and capable of vengeance. I want to make it clear, that Iran’s regime had to go but this is not in any way, a well-formed strategy. In fact, it’s the worst possible way.

So what does this mean for our homeland defense? Great question because DHS under this administration and the FBI, are severely compromised in their mission. Demands to chase down Trump’s perceived enemies has cost reliable experts their jobs, only to be replaced by pathetically uninformed political operatives. The new Secretary of DHS, yet unconfirmed is beyond ignorant of anything related to homeland defense, in fact, his management experience is nearly non-existent at all.

Homeland Security today, is a shell of its former self and it’s there role that is most important to informing, educating and keeping all of us apprised of threats of all kinds, but with vapid, percentage based DOGE firings, experts fired because of some inane political reason, has left our DHS cupboard relatively bare. Even if they were fully staffed, they would be handcuffed to the regime propaganda, that we’ve seen plastered all over social media, airport screens and billboards. To be effective in defense of our citizenry, requires intelligence, disseminated widely and regularly and honestly updated, without the political spin and false narratives that define the current administration.

Most adults over 30, will probably recall the daily briefings from Government officials, the so-called “stoplight chart” that used red, yellow and green daily to tell us the overall terrorism threat. As I just checked the DHS website, the graphic below is what it shows.

So what we have now, is an abandoned post while the nation is at war. Over at the FBI, who knows what is going on? There is no public advisory of any kind. In fact, the last entry on the Iran Threat page, is from 2022. Unlike the War on Terror where such entities did a professional job of keeping us informed, this administration didn’t even think about the homeland.

This is unacceptable by any standard, even the embarrassingly low one, set by our current incompetent administration. Failure is everywhere. Kuwait shot down three of our F-15s, the crews are still recovering. Department of State, gave a phone number for stranded Americans in the Middle East to get assistance in getting home that was inoperative. Normally, State handles all of this. Our allies in the Gulf and who direct targets were not informed, even at the highest classification level. These are merely a handful of examples. In all the time I’ve spent in the region, often at war, I could never have imagined that such incompetence could be on display and cost American and other lives. Mistakes are made in war, despite best the best efforts to coordinate, but this crew, made zero attempt. The incompetence also bleeds over into violating the constitutional rights of troops, when White Christian Nationalist rhetoric becomes leadership’s motivational tool.

"Religious freedom group says 200 troops sent complaints of superiors using extremist Christian rhetoric to justify war

US military commanders have been invoking extremist Christian rhetoric about biblical “end times” to justify involvement in the Iran war to troops, according to complaints made to a watchdog group.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) says it has received more than 200 complaints from service members across all branches of the armed forces, including the marines, air force and space force.

One complainant, identified as a noncommissioned officer (NCO) in a unit that could be deployed “at any moment to join” operations against Iran, told MRFF in a complaint viewed by the Guardian that their commander had “urged us to tell our troops that this was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’ and he specifically referenced numerous citations out of the Book of Revelation referring to Armageddon and the imminent return of Jesus Christ”.

- US troops were told war on Iran was ‘all part of God’s divine plan’, watchdog alleges
- The Guardian
- Sara Braun
- Tue 3 Mar 2026 16.21 EST

My point about the incompetence and arrogance of our leadership is that our troops, do not deserve incompetence when their lives are on the line. Neither do their families and the rest of us at home. Throughout my deployments, I’ve always said, “that things were harder on those at home.” We know what we’re doing in combat zones but those at home are in the dark. Now it works both ways, because those deployed that understand the threats at home, will worry about them when they need to focus on their mission. The Israelis have a professional military that runs on competence and planning. Some areas of our Pentagon under its current leadership, do too. Still, our overall leadership is grotesquely incompetent and drunk on power. This is how you lose wars and destroy countries.

The last I’ll say about our military is that, despite some of the most exceptional warriors on earth at any time, they are risking their lives for incompetents and greed. They deserve our support and the best way to give it to them, if by firing this entire administration, lock, stock and barrel.

As this already, too long essay comes to a close, it’s imperative that the only way we try and get our feet under us before its too late, is to beat down the doors of every intransigent Republican in Congress and get them to do their jobs and stop playing politics with the lives of millions. Just last Tuesday on a party-line vote, Republican Senators declined to limit Trump’s war powers without congressional approval. Apparently, none of them have ever read the constitution.

This essay covered a great deal and I am indebted for your patience. Demand every congressman or woman, do their job and take back the power constitutionally granted to them as the only entity that can declare war. Demand competence in leadership and above all, demand truth.

My friends, fighting and dying so that big oil, the president and his family can steal more wealth, has nothing to do with being an American. We’re better than we’re showing and need to stop allowing arrogance, violence and greed to replace our sacred national values. There is no longer law, that represents that everyone is equal before it. There are no longer checks and balances as President James Madison designed for our style of government. Mafioso wannabes with a cruel streak a mile wide, supported by sycophants instead of experts, will kill us all, if we don’t put a stop to it. The bottom-line, is that we are in serious danger at home and abroad and no one in this government is coming to the rescue. Like 1775, we all must be minutemen and women and rise to the challenge of defending ourselves, our nation and our style of government, ethics included.

Cheers for your weekend,

Paul

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TAT friends,

Today won’t be a rant, but will be a well-informed and harsh critique of the absurd war and its powerful enablers launched unconstitutionally and recklessly, by our current and overtly corrupt administration. There are some very difficult truths to understand well as we ponder the disaster this war has predictably become. Some of these truths pertain to this administration, and some pertains to both major US political parties. Who those truths matter to the most, are you and me, as well as every single American fed up with the corruption in Washington.

Today’s topic levels serious and warranted criticism of “big oil.” We don’t often hear about this and for the same reasons we don’t see far more ethical reporting in the news media, because like oil, media power comes down to less than two hands worth of fingers. The corruption within our republic, largely on display via sycophantic Congressmen, Senators cabinet members and especially in the Trump-era, the White House, will continue to do considerable damage to our national security. The current war is in my professional opinion, another war for oil.

That corruption is arrogantly displayed by US and foreign fossil fuel interests globally and in a variety of forms. The worst and cruelest activities often come at the behest of US and global oil supermajors, originally called the “Seven Sisters. This grouping includes the likes of ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, British Petroleum etc. By honest financial and strategic assessments, these entities hold enormous sway over politics and policy of American and other nation’s governments. We must put our foot down and demand accountability, and right damn now if we are to ever be free from these wars for oil and the havoc wrought on the least of us around the world. The willful negligence of oil supermajors is funding the deaths of massive numbers of our fellow, global citizens… for excessive profits.

There is no way to cover the full history of the fossil fuel industry in modern times here, and so I will focus only on the parts that can be fully expressed here in this essay, and that matters most to citizens and the troops that die for oil profits. For those who don’t believe in climate change, stop reading now because I will briefly address this first in this essay, and only to show just how devious and dangerous big oil has been to all human beings. “Climate change denialism” was a created industry, paid for by big oil and sustained for over sixty-seven years, by their ill-gained profits. Their treachery doesn’t stop there by any means, but I won’t spend long on this part as that I want to focus on the role that big oil’s interests are playing in this war.

First, a disclaimer I believe that unfettered access to fossil fuels is a strategic requirement based on a long list of critical strategic planning considerations. I harbor no grievance with the hard-working professionals in the fossil fuel industries. Our energy resources are produced by top professionals working in transport, drilling, distribution, refining etc. My harsh criticism is specifically focused on the immoral greed, of the boardrooms, C-suite executives, and those they employ as hired guns to distract from truth about their activities. Also, don’t forget the entities that hold powerful percentages of stock. That said, let’s get down to business.

So here’s the short narrative of big oil’s con-job on all global citizens, and largely focused on the US and West in general. As early as 1959, oil industry researchers had built the majority of the scientific foundation for the concept we know today, as climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels.

"A key contribution of our work has been demonstrating the systematic and statistically significant bias of ExxonMobil’s public communications toward denial and delay. But the most uncomfortable realization is how subtle and systematic and increasingly sophisticated their propaganda has become."

- Harvard researchers chart evolution from denial to misdirection as House inquiry widens
- Harvard Gazette
- Alvin Powell, Harvard Staff Writer
- September 28th, 2021

By the late 1980s consensus among the world’s best scientists fully concurred with what oil industry researchers had predicted decades prior. Only now would the oil industry slowly and begrudgingly concede minor points about the science. Their ambivalence was delivered with subtle hostility and arrogance, as the quote below clearly demonstrates.

"Take for example, Shell’s 1998 Report, “Climate Change: What does Shell Think and Do About It?” In this report, Shell acknowledged the connection between climate change and the burning of fossil fuels. However, instead of pledging to reduce its carbon emissions, Shell claims it will combat climate change by continuing to produce oil and gas in order to fuel economic growth and foster technological innovation. In 2000, Exxon reiterated such market strategies, claiming “technology will reduce the potential risks posed by climate change.” This response from Shell proved ineffective at best, and harmful at worst; it ignored any sense of responsibility in the company’s direct contributions to climate change. Instead of addressing the climate change problem head on by reducing carbon emissions, the oil industry favored nonbinding, technological and market-based steps to confronting the issue. 

Now, we are left to deal with the environmental consequences of years of corporate-backed denial which has helped instill public distrust in climate science despite the strong agreement among scientists. Today, this climate denialism appears in a new form: corporate greenwashing. Greenwashing is when a company misrepresents its products or services to be more environmentally friendly than they are in order to gain sales. It functions as a marketing tool that tricks the public into thinking their purchase at a certain company is better for the environment. In reality, these companies – not unlike oil and gas corporations – are doing little to nothing to actually combat climate change."

- Defense, Denial, and Disinformation: Uncovering the Oil Industry’s Early Knowledge of Climate Change 
- Georgetown University
- By Charlotte Taylor, SFS ‘24
- October 25, 2023

Finally, the costs from our nearly 70 years of increasing temperatures have driven the dramatically rising severity of storms, hunger, drought and more. The WHO/ World Health Organization’s analysis is as heart-breaking as it is infuriating.

Key facts

"Climate change is directly contributing to humanitarian emergencies from heatwaves, wildfires, floods, tropical storms and hurricanes and they are increasing in scale, frequency and intensity.

Research shows that 3.6 billion people already live in areas highly susceptible to climate change. Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per year, from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone.

The direct damage costs to health (excluding costs in health-determining sectors such as agriculture and water and sanitation) is estimated to be between US$ 2–4 billion per year by 2030.

Areas with weak health infrastructure – mostly in developing countries – will be the least able to cope without assistance to prepare and respond.
Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases through better transport, food and energy use choices can result in very large gains for health, particularly through reduced air pollution.

- Climate Change
- World Health Organization
- 12 October 2023

Last but not least, we know who is to blame as well as who some of the primary villains are. It is they who are paying to keep the wool pulled over the eyes of uninformed and brainwashed Republican voters. This short assessment of big oil’s cold, heartless profit fantasies, is key to understanding what comes next… war to secure more profits and power, for some of America’s most dangerous and lawless oligarchies.

Troops should never die for an oligarchical industry, just to increase their bottom-line.

Okay my friends, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of this essay, oil wars. Like today’s GOP, the oil industry has been killing global citizens, since they first began paying for “climate change denial.” This isn’t their first brush with what in my lay opinion sounds like, criminally negligent homicide or as it’s normally prosecuted under Federal law, manslaughter or involuntary manslaughter. Remember, I’m not a lawyer but like most of you, I can easily read and interpret most of what is written in laymen’s terms, within our USC or US Code.

As prestigious scholars and founders, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison insisted on laws being written for us, the citizenry and in terms that we could understand. We’ve allowed this critical founding principle to be bastardized to a point, that it can mean anything a persuasive attorney wants it to mean. Our current, far-right SCOTUS operates in flagrant violation of the simplicity requirements, demanded by our founders. They daily twist the law into pretzels to support oligarchy and power-mongering by elite wealth using White Christian Nationalist ideology as the vehicle for their corrupt opinions.

Now that we have the premise of the severity of big oil’s willful behavior in my lifetime of nearly 70 years, let’s drill down into justifications for these claims regarding oil wars and the aforementioned, climate denialism. In this section, I will only be discussing wars for oil.

While that that we often believe that wars are fought for oil, few people understand that oil also sets the pre-conditions for war. While in typical fashion, politicians and of course the fossil fuel industry, tell us we’re just tossing around political attack arrows, but research tells us a different story.

The “conclusion” quote from the policy brief in the graphic above.

"CONCLUSION

"Appreciating the eight ways in which oil contributes to war can help policymakers design grand strategy, allocate military resources, and shape domestic energy policy. Policy analysts tend to focus too narrowly on “energy security” as defined only by reliable access to fuel supplies, while missing the broader relationships between energy and security. Only by thinking systematically about the oil-conflict relationship can they craft intelligent foreign policy." 

- Oil, Conflict, and U.S. National Interests
- Harvard's Belfer Center, Kennedy School at Harvard University
- Quarterly Journal: International Security
- By Jeff D. Colgan
- October, 2013

Like all nations, fair access to energy resources is a critical element to our national security and the global economy, therefore rendering it of strategic value. Still, fair access to competitively priced energy resources, does not require war. It requires wisdom, diplomacy and building sustainable relationships with allies and adversaries. Trump, with the support of the entire Republican Party, have banished from government, all those who would have nixed our ongoing insanity, long before we went to war. Real presidents listen to real experts. Reality is as absent from 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue as it is within his voting base.

The strategic requirement to control Iran’s oil fields, is not a legitimate consideration of whether to got to war. America has been energy independent for a decade or more and the trend has risen sharply, beginning around 2011.

"Americans old enough to remember the oil embargoes of the 1970s are still scarred by gasoline shortages and rationing. The available solutions at that time, such as lowering the thermostat on oil-fueled furnaces and throwing on a sweater, didn’t meet the magnitude of the crisis, and measures such as improving automobile fuel economy would take a decade or more to have an effect. That’s why even today, calls for American energy independence are strongly embraced by unhappy voters.

As it turns out, the United States is energy independent right now. And it’s not due to some statistical fluke: The nation has been a net-exporter of energy, on the basis of energy content, since 2019 and the level is growing. For the first three months of 2024, net energy exports are on an annual pace of 9.3 quadrillion Btus, or more than net energy imports in 2017."

- Infographic: U.S. Declaration of Energy Independence
- ASME, The American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
- Jeffrey Winters
- Jul 30, 2024

Below, are the graphics from the ASME article.

So we don’t actually need Iran or anyone else’s oil, other than the century old greed of those oil supermajors who will profit wildly via new access and power over Iranian oil. Sure, Republicans will scream bloody murder at this but facts don’t lie, Republicans do. This is not our first rodeo of regime change with Iran. Most Iranians still harbor a deep grudge over the 1953 US and Britain’s coup of Iran’s first democratically elected president after the Shah’s forced abdication.

That same Shah was reinstalled by the CIA and British Intelligence via that coup. Iranians were and remain furious. Our involvement revolved around helping Britain retain their vast investments in Iranian oil, which they stood to lose after the new president, Mohammad Mosaddeq had nationalized Britain’s oil infrastructure. Also, then president Truman was focused on denying the Soviet Union Iran’s strategic location and oil reserves. War for oil goes way back and those wars have created tentacles, unnaturally twisting the geo-political balance of the region.

The Middle East isn’t alone in being pilfered by the US and other colonizing European powers, especially in Central and South America. Trump has renewed this lust for oil and other resources in the Americas, from Canada to the tip of Argentina at the other end of the world. Republicans call it the “Donroe Doctrine” after President Monroe’s Doctrine (1823) which was intertwined with Manifest Destiny (1840). It’s hard to decide sometimes who’s greedier and more immoral, Trump or the boardrooms of the supermajors.

The recent Venezuelan fiasco is exemplary of this farcical and illegal, Donroe Doctrine. The administration and US oil companies have already created the template for how to profit off of Trump’s wars for oil. This is part of the administration’s “Donroe Doctrine.”

"This latest US aggression in Latin America is another manifestation of the Trump administration’s deep ties to Big Oil and its naked prioritization of private profit and corporate interests over the public interest. It’s a toxic, dangerous combination: an administration that flouts legal obligations and a president who believes he’s above the law attacking another country on behalf of an industry that has largely operated with impunity and is actively lobbying for immunity from liability for the damage it causes."

"Venezuela could be first in a series of attempted South American takeovers under President Trump’s reimagined “Donroe Doctrine,” (a corollary to the 19th century Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny establishing US imperialist claims over the Americas)—aiming to give the US control over more than 40% of the world’s oil and the ability to control commodity prices. ExxonMobil and other US-based corporations are deriving massive revenues and profits from oil production in Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbor, and are anxious to preserve access to onshore and offshore resources (even as ExxonMobil faces multiple environmental lawsuits over its offshore drilling operations). Venezuela and Guyana have been locked in a territorial dispute over their oil-rich border region for years, and Venezuelan military boats have reportedly threatened ExxonMobil tankers."

- President Trump’s Imperial and Illegal Grab for Venezuelan Oil Is a Losing Bet
- The Equation
- Union of Concerned Scientists
- Laura Peterson co-authored this post.
- January 13th, 2026

Venezuela won’t be the last oil war in South America either. Threats have already been made against Columbia and other South and Central American nations. Oil and other abundant Argentine resources are also on Trump’s target list. Oil is a big piece of our relationship with Argentina, especially for Chevron. Argentina run by another far-right populist, chainsaw-wielding Javier Milei, has concerns about how Trump’s energy lust would impact their nation. Milei, despite his perpetual sucking up to Trump, is an economist by trade and should understand the issue well. It all depends on what Trump demands down the line, after the on again off again 40 billion dollar bailout ruse Trump used to keep Milei in power.

I think we all get it by now, Trump and big oil are in bed together and hiding their true intentions. This should have been expected by every American who was paying attention when Trump, called oil executives to Mar-a-Lago in May of 2024 and asked for a billion dollars for his campaign. Lo and behold, as soon as he takes office on January 20th of 2025, he and the Republican-US Congress, began rolling back environmental and administrative laws that they dislike, because it cuts into the profits of their big oil donors. Next we’ll look at some of the administration’s bogus reasoning for going to war with Iran, even though we now know that oil and the leverage it provides over other nations plays a prominent role.

Next up, we have one of Trump’s ever-changing justifications for war, that we had to stop Iran’s nuclear program. This is another non-sequitur. Let’s talk a minute about Iran, their nuclear program and whether it was an imminent nuclear threat, when Trump gave the attack order. First, a quote from the extraordinary experts at The Arms Control Association.

"U.S. President Donald Trump and senior administration officials have offered conflicting justifications for the renewed U.S. strikes on Iran, including the claim that Iran’s nuclear and  missile programs posed an imminent threat to the United States. There is no evidence, however, to support those claims. Furthermore, it is increasingly clear that the Trump administration did not engage in good-faith negotiations with Iran over the past several weeks and exhaust diplomatic options to reach an agreement to limit future risks posed by the nuclear and missile programs."

- Did Iran's Nuclear and Missile Programs Pose an Imminent Threat? No.
- Arms Control Association
- KELSEY DAVENPORT, director for nonproliferation policy
- March 3rd, 2026

As noted, this non-imminent nuclear threat was but one of the ever-changing justifications for the war, spewing from the administration. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, claimed today that we only joined in with Israel, because they were already planning to strike. Israel on the other hand, was living under constant threat from Iran’s missile programs, as we all witnessed only a few months ago. I keep tabs on Israel via Israeli news, which is far more factual than our current crop of news media, beholden to the Trump administration, such as CBS and ABC. Their spineless handling of any news about the administration, puts America and our allies at risk. Besides, I talk with one of my daughters, living in the north of Israel who like most Israelis, is hunkering down in bomb shelters multiple times a day. So, Israel had a valid reason to attack, while we did not.

The absence of a clear reason for the attack and failure of the administration to justify to the American people and the world, reasoning for engaging in this war, has also kept our long allies out of it. Britain and Spain, rightly denied us the use of airbases. Anyone who doesn’t watch FOX News or any of the other extreme-right-wing media, wouldn’t know this but NATO is charting their own course ahead, with or without us. We have ceased to be a worthy member of NATO and intelligence sharing has diminished to a level unseen with our formerly close allies. We are outcasts in the world and will remain so until we-the-people restore our republic, and hold this administration’s leadership and enablers, fully accountable. Europe has zero reason to trust us. NATO will not join this war.

Another indicator that the nuclear justification is bogus, is that none of the nuclear facilities were included on the target list, in the opening days of the war. The truth is, Iran has no ICBM, Intercontinental Ballistic Missile capability, which would be required in order to threaten the US. US intelligence estimates that they would not have such, until 2035, if at all.

"Furthermore, there is no evidence to suggest that Iran was on the verge of developing a ballistic missile capable of targeting the United States. In the wake of the negotiation of the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran announced a voluntary range limit of 2,000 kilometers for its ballistic missiles. Tehran appears to still be generally adhering to that limit.

For years, the U.S. intelligence community raised the prospect of an Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), but it never materialized. For example, the 1999 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate predicted that the United States would probably face an ICBM threat from Iran by 2015. A 2025 report by the Defense Intelligence Agency last year concluded that Iran did not have ballistic missiles capable of hitting the United States, and that it might take until 2035 or longer for it to have up to 60 intercontinental ballistic missiles if there was a decision to try to do so. The DIA also assessed that Iran would need to make a determined push to achieve those capabilities on that timeline.

- Did Iran's Nuclear and Missile Programs Pose an Imminent Threat? No.- Arms Control Association
- KELSEY DAVENPORT, director for nonproliferation policy
- March 3rd, 2026

Speaking of Arms control, it was Trump who tore up the JCPOA or Iran Nuclear Deal during his first administration in 2017. Had that agreement remained in effect, we would had far more intelligence and leverage over Iran’s nuclear programs.

"Six years after former President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, the disastrous consequences of this decision are still adding up.

In addition to Iran being closer than ever to a nuclear weapons capability, now we must consider how the declining security situation in the Middle East has raised the stakes significantly. Trump promised a “better deal” but instead we got an increasingly costly blunder that may be impossible to fix."

- Killing the Iran nuclear deal was one of Trump's biggest failures
- Responsible Statecraft
- Tom Collina
- May 8, 2024

The administration as of my last reading of the war headlines, still cannot find a workable narrative to justify their greed. To make matters worse, the overwhelming majority of the nation, is deeply troubled by these oil wars and is saying so… loudly.

The New World Order

I’ll take a minute here to offer a perspective of the new world order, so often referenced by both Trump and Putin. I have written plenty on this issue over the past year or so, but will add the links to a couple of those essays for those seeking deep background.

Here’s the premise; after Putin called Trump to congratulate him on his election win, Putin declared that the election signaled the beginning of a “new world order.” Putin operates on his own Russian perspective about sovereignty, that only allows for superpowers to have full sovereignty rights and all other nations fall under the purview of one of those superpowers and with lesser sovereignty rights. Those primary powers have the right to wield violence to protect their turf, so to speak, which includes the states under their own umbrella.

When I first began writing about this topic, I foresaw Trump, Putin and Xi becoming the primary powers, each with a region under their control. After the attack on Iran, there is now a chance that only Russia and the US, just may become the only two. Here’s why. China starves for fuel to drive her economy. China buys somewhere between 80 and 90% of Iran’s oil exports while buying 20-22% of Russian oil. Should both Russia and the US with control over Iranian oil, wish to subdue China as a competitor in the new world order, they could wreck China’s economy, rendering her unsatisfactory as a member of the full sovereignty tribe.

This is admittedly just an educated guess, however the major muscle movements on the world stage over the past couple of years, seem to be pointing in that direction. Don’t forget that Trump, the wanna-be mafioso, relies almost exclusively on loyalty when choosing partners in crime. Putin loyally bought him the 2016 election and has played a role in every election since, whether for Trump or the GOP. Russia has been attacking the US and the West with complex and covert influence operations for several decades. Russia is quite frankly, not only Trump and the GOP’s “muscle” but taught the GOP how to influence, Russia-style.

• Trump, Xi, Putin and Modi, A New World Order?

• US adventurism in Venezuela, is only the first brazen step in the new "Donroe Doctrine"

• Let's talk about Greenland for a moment - by Paul Cobaugh

This portion of the essay may be the least important for now, but please keep an eye out for any indicators of Trump and Putin beginning to distance themselves from China. This is as they say… a very bad sign that heightens the chances for another world war. Like I said, this has been a gut instinct I can’t shake and based on years of studying Russia, China and their allies. India figures in this somewhere and it seems as if they are cozying up to Putin more than usual, recently inking a new arms deal just last December, despite push-back from the West. Strengthening India who has loyally helped Russia evade oil sanctions. India and Russia have a very long and close relationship.

Well readers, this special edition has already become my longest essay and feels book-like after hours at my laptop. There is so much that is chaotic in the world at the moment, however we must always keep an eye on the bigger picture. There are plenty of villains to go around and Trump, Putin, big oil and a congress full of spineless Republican congressional enablers are the primary bad guys to keep an eye on. Despite the length, there’s far more unsaid. I will get back to the high-terrorism threat stemming from Iran’s Quds forces operating overseas, including here in the US.

Whatever we do when this painful period in US history comes to an end, we must seek not revenge, but justice and accountability for those criminals and oligarchs within this administration and every single enabling GOP congressperson. When congress is back on its feet, we will require new campaign finance laws, that rein in the flood of dark money into politics, courtesy of Chief Justice John Roberts’ Citizens United decision. I do understand that there’s a very long list of other “must dos,” in order to clean up the catastrophic mess, left by the greed and lawlessness imposed upon us. We not only can do this, but must before Trump orders a nuke to solve his perpetually unsolved problems. This disastrous war only gets worse before it gets better. The longer we leave the selfish and incompetent in charge, the more dangerous it gets for you and me, as well as our families.

Cheers all and if you’ve read this far, I am deeply grateful. The more we know, the better protected we are. That’s the primary reason for starting this publication. Back Friday or Saturday.

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today I put my national security hat back on in order to lay out my thoughts for you. Not only is my experience in the counterterrorism world instructive, but I have have had a deep personal and professional relationship with the region for nearly 50 years. Like most Americans, I am closely following the developments as we prepare for war. Spoiler alert; I currently rate the probability of war, at a roughly 75-80% chance and I’m not at all pleased with the odds. The preparations for and a long list of other indicators say so. This is something that American citizens need to understand better than what we see in our daily news feeds.

It’s our troops, our national resources and advanced terrorist risks to our nation that will be the American cost. The instability that typically ensues post actual combat operations and after our failures in Iraq, Afghanistan and other lesser conflicts, to “secure the peace,” point to chaos, another geo-political realignment, and one not likely to be in the favor of the US or our former allies at NATO. To explain the issue fully would require far more than an essay, so today I will only touch on the key points.

First up, a bit of background. The genesis of this coming conflict is decades old, dating at least as far back as the Hostage Crisis during the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. That revolution then spread all across the Middle East and North Africa and ended up drawing multiple regional states into an era of Islamic violent extremism, that endures in many somewhat lesser forms around the globe, even until today. Iran soon became close to Russia and became a global terrorist threat in the years to come. From the very beginning of the Islamic Republic in 1979, Iran has exported terrorism.

With a poor conventional army, Iran has depended a great deal on terrorism to pursue her strategic interests. In the quote below from the Council on Foreign Relations, we can see how Iran employs her terrorist forces, most often carried out by the Quds Force, a subset of the IRGC, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, responsible for operations outside Iran. They leave behind a long trail of terrorist acts across the globe, including he bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983, that killed 241 US military personnel. A year later, the US designated Iran, a State Sponsor of Terrorism. In the years since and with Russian assistance, their threat has matured significantly. Iran was responsible for training and equipping the Hamas organization that carried out the October 7th, 2003 massacre against Israel. They deserve the bad rap that they now are known for around the world.

"The IRGC began sponsoring nonstate armed groups in the region in the 1980s, first deploying in the Iran-Iraq War. The Quds Force emerged as the IRGC’s de facto external affairs branch, and it has developed ties with armed groups from Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Yemen, and elsewhere, providing them with training, weapons, money, and military advice to project Iran’s power abroad. Some of these groups frequently operate independently of Iran and each other, but Tehran views them as part of an anti-West “axis of resistance” under its sway. Experts say Iran has attempted to strengthen cooperation within this alliance in recent years."

- The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
- Council on Foreign Relations
- CFR Editors
- September 28th, 2007

To bring us up to where we are today, we must also discuss their pursuit of nuclear weapons, which is now the stated cause of the US to be preparing an attack. This is a fault of Trump’s own doing, after removing the US from the JCPOA, The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, during his first administration.

To make matters worse, December of 2025 through the next month, another violent uprising took place in Iran, where Iranian forces murdered roughly 30,000 protestors in the streets, angry over another steep downturn of the Iranian economy. Trump then threatened the regime with violence if they did not stop the violence against the Iranian people.

"The scale of violence deployed by Iran’s security forces against protesters has been staggering, even by the standards of the Islamic Republic. Thousands have been killed since demonstrations began, with many more detained or tortured.

Yet across much of the Middle East, Muslim-majority governments have remained conspicuously quiet. Expressions of concern, if they exist at all, are carefully calibrated and devoid of moral condemnation. Instead, regional powers appear focused on preserving the status quo—passing messages to the Trump administration in hopes of deterring another costly U.S. intervention or regime-change operation. This impulse has brought together unlikely actors: Iran’s former adversaries, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, alongside onetime champions of the Arab uprisings like Turkey and Qatar, all quietly backchanneling for an off-ramp."

- Is Iran on the brink of change?
- Brookings Institute
- Aslı Aydıntaşbaş, Jeffrey Feltman, Sharan Grewal, Steven Heydemann, Mara  Karlin, Michael E. O’Hanlon, and Shibley Telhami
- January 15th, 2026

Okay, this brief background brings us up to today. Yes, we and many other nations have every reason to despise the current Theocratic regime, but this doesn’t necessarily mean we need to go to war with them, especially after the decimation of Hizbollah and Hamas by the IDF/ Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza and Lebanon. Then we joined Israel last year in attacking Iranian nuclear facilities, thus setting back their program to manufacture nuclear weapons, significantly.

Today, the US wrapped up talks with Iran about ending the current crisis, but by all reporting, they have been unsuccessful. Now the threat of war looms larger, although both sides claim to be still talking. In the past couple of weeks, the US has been quietly building up forces in the region and to the point that it is the largest prepositioning of US forces in the region for years. There is an enormous cost to forward deploying so many resources not to mention, the fact that it seems no one in the world wants this war, but Trump.

"The scale of the U.S. mobilization is indeed staggering. As reported by the Responsible Statecraft’s Kelley Vlahos, at least 108 air tankers are in or heading to the CENTCOM theater. As military officers reckon, strikes can now happen “at any moment.” These preparations suggest not only that the operation may be imminent, but also that it could be more sustainable and long-lasting than a one-off strike in Iranian nuclear sites last June."

- Arab and Gulf State leaders, Why Arab states are terrified of US war with Iran
- Responsible Statecraft
- Eldar Mamedov
- February 21, 2026

The UK for example, denied the US the use of their airbases for offensive actions against Iran. Most of the world also opposes such a war, and for good reasons.

"There is an increasing sense of doom among the regional observers: given the scale of the build-up, there is no face-saving way for President Donald Trump to call off strikes and rescue himself from a situation into which he has needlessly driven himself into.

But while U.S. military planners look at target lists, Iraq and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states see only risk.

“They may like to see the Iranian leadership weakened, but all of them are more concerned about a scenario of chaos and uncertainty and the possibility of more radical elements coming to power there,” Anna Jacobs Khalaf, a Gulf analyst and non-resident fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute, told Al Jazeera last month.

Since January, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Oman, alongside Turkey and Egypt, have been engaged in intense diplomacy to pull Washington and Tehran back from the brink. This is not because they harbor any sympathy for Tehran, but because they realize they would be on the front lines of the Iranian retaliation, and what happens after if the regime were to collapse."

- Arab and Gulf State leaders, Why Arab states are terrified of US war with Iran
- Responsible Statecraft
- Eldar Mamedov
- February 21, 2026

Even the US military is delicately attempting to dissuade the White House from their path. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine has been outlining risks and they have the potential to be substantial. They range from sustaining operations that are employing an already overstretched force. The aircraft carrier, USS Gerald Ford for example, has already been deployed for 8 months, two more than a standard deployment. That could stretch to 11 or more. The news has been full of stories about how tired and worn-out the crew is, as well as the ship herself. This occurred also during our assault on the Houthis, at the beginning of the war in Gaza. After a billion dollars spent, the administration had accommodate a face-saving exit, only getting the Houthis to stop shooting at US vessels, in the bargain.

There are plenty of other reasons too. We would likely cause a run on our munitions stocks, already depleted in other operations. The Iranians, should they feel as if regime change was imminent, could block the Hormuz Strait where 20% of the world’s oil flows through. Domestic prices would soar if this were to happen. We would also not have the support of other Arab nations who assisted us during the Israel/ Iran conflict. We are not just losing allies in the Middle East, but Europe and NATO are fed up with us under Trump and already have been charting their own courses that don’t require the US. Trump has painted himself and us with him, into a corner.

There are some other considerations that I have been pondering this week too. Iran’s oil is a tempting target for a president that doesn’t mind using our military to acquire access to more oil for US supermajors. After all, that’s precisely what we illegally did to Venezuela. Remember when Trump and the GOP were moaning loudly about Christians being killed in Nigeria? Well, anyone who has studied the region knows that interreligious violence in that particular part of north and northeastern Nigeria, is also where their oil is. These false pretenses for military action are absurd and only destabilize parts of the world that don’t need any more chaos. Then today, Trump was quoted saying that a peaceful takeover of Cuba may be in the cards. Imperialism died a couple of centuries ago, except between Trump’s ears.

As I finish this essay, I just received a phone notification that the airstrikes against Iran have begun, and in conjunction with Israel. I suppose that this makes this essay a bit obsolete, but I will publish it anyway. The background and concerns of so many around the world, are still relevant. Few people appreciate peace like old soldiers. How ironic, a man too cowardly to serve his nation during Vietnam and bought five bone spur deferments, loves wars that he doesn’t have to fight. None of this was necessary. Godspeed the success and safe return of our troops, and may there be as few civilian casualties as possible.

Paul

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TAT readers,

On Monday I promised another essay by Tuesday or at the latest, Wednesday morning. At the last minute, I thought to wait, only to see if I needed to discuss anything from last evening’s, SOTU/ State of the Union Address. I now regret waiting and simply because there was nothing but the tired old blustering lies, dishonest hyperbole, bracketed by the standard Trump cruelty and hateful attacks on the undeserving. The only value to last night’s fiasco was to inform us about where we are as a nation of values, being led by an administration and Republican Party devoid of them. They all proved this point last night in what I have assessed as, the most humiliating speech I have ever witnessed or read of in our history regarding high-level Government officials.

This is really saying something since I was a junior in high school when President Nixon was forced to resign, largely by his own Republican Party. His crimes were child’s play compared to the Mafia and oligarchical administration, we now suffer under. There is no resemblance between that GOP and our current MAGA GOP, and hasn’t been since the early 1980s. Conservatism is extinct and has been wholly replaced with far-right, violent extremism. Now, a couple of thoughts about last night’s debacle.

I will dispense with repeating all of the commentary from pundits and fact-checkers, simply because that is just about all that mainstream media is providing. Mainstream media has been as we say in Texas, bootlickers to Trump administrations and now live in fear of or tacitly support him for their own greedy reasons. ABC and CBS used to be just about the only TV news that I would watch although now, neither are worthy of my time. Their corporate taskmasters’ subservience to the administration is the reason. The rest and all cable news I refuse to watch. With only 6 or 7 primary media organizations in control of nearly all our broadcast media, their profit lines are more important to them than our national security, the health and welfare of the American people and above all, our constitutional rights.

My approach to last night’s SOTU was to only watch long enough to assess Trump’s cognitive and physical capabilities. For the rest, I followed the Associated Press’ steady stream of updates throughout. Frankly, ten minutes was nine too many. On a scale of 1 - 10, with 10 being fully capable, I rate his cognitive health roughly a three, and his physical, possibly a four. What I saw was an old bloated man leaning heavily on the podium, which he consistently leaned far over while squinting, just to read the teleprompters. Talk about “low energy.”

His voice, nearly inaudible at times and when he did deliver his standard faux anger lines, it appeared staged and seemed as if the loudness of those scripted exhibitions of anger, startled him. Heaven knows what drugs they give him, just to make him semi-coherent for big events. The overt lies and conspiracy theories were just more of the same we’ve seen for years. Still, the overwhelming majority of thinking Americans, no longer believes any of it and his base is even beginning to become gun-shy. Even GOP applause was often a bit weak. I’m only speculating here but MTG, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s recent revelations of how much he is mocked and laughed at behind his back, may have had something to do with weaker applause. The real issue is most Republicans are being brutally thrashed at home and sense danger in the Midterms, as do all administrations. They are now aware that Trump is making it far more difficult to win in November.

After all, the midterms are the issue for Republicans, isn’t it? Midterms are typically hard on the sitting administration. This year, all across the country, Republicans are being beaten up in their home districts, with most just avoiding going home other than for photo ops. As we watched last year, Republican townhalls became the political version of a boxing ring for GOP reps. They ran and haven’t returned since, preferring to allow their seemingly endless GOP influencers to post social media for them from afar. They may have a winning hand though and all due to the GOP’s plans to “rig” our midterm elections. They have a wide spectrum of tactics to support their “cheating strategy.” Below are a small handful of links that every voter must become aware of as we speed headlong towards November.

• Eviscerating DOJ’s Longstanding Voting Rights Enforcement

• The Trump Administration’s Campaign to Undermine the Next Election | Brennan Center for Justice

• A reporter outlines Trump's options to subvert the 2026 midterm elections : NPR

• The 2026 Midterms: Trump will try and steal the midterms by suppressing the vote and controlling the narrative | LSE United States Politics and Policy

Trump’s speech fell flat for the all important independent voters, where his approval rating has dropped to an abysmal 20%. Republicans may have applauded on cue but there was little enthusiasm. Most felt as if Trump gave them absolutely nothing to work with, as the midterms beckon them tauntingly. In fact, in a late January poll from the esteemed, Pew Research Center shows how far Trump has dropped in favor across a wide variety of the electorate.

“The golden age of America is upon us”: That’s how Trump rounded off his State of the Union speech. And despite the obedient nods and claps of the Republicans in the audience, it became fairly clear in the hours after the enormously long address that none of them really believed it."

- Trump’s State of the Union was such a hot mess that his own party doesn’t know what to do next
- The Independent
- Holly Baxter
- February 25th, 2026

From the Pew Research Center polling

Even among Republicans, there is a noticeable decline in their confidence regarding his mental fitness, his respect for our democratic values and his ability to act ethically.

No, the SOTU Address did not give Republicans a “bump” in their polls. Speaker Johnson has reason to be afraid of the midterms. The point of this article today is not about partisanship. It’s about what happens in the life-cycle of autocratic and dictatorial leaders. When men like Trump begin to lose, they become more dangerous and this typically ends poorly for him, his government and most often leaves the nation involved struggling to restore government. This should frighten all of us.

"The rise in the proportion of autocrats exiting office amid protests and decrease in those ousted by coups is particularly important because the way a leader exits office influences the subsequent political trajectory of a country. Specifically, it affects both the likelihood that the regime falls with the leader, and the chances that democratization will ensue."

- How Autocracies Fall
- Andrea Kendall-Taylor and Erica Frantz
- THE WASHINGTON QUARTERLY 
- Spring 2014

Yes, we are beginning to see an end to this administration, but as we can see in the quote above, prudence demands that we remove him, his administration and their financial backers in the most democratic manner possible. We are already at a high stress point on our political landscape, and conditioned to administration attempts to wield force against all who stand in his way. We must be disciplined in demanding free and fair elections for November. This terrifies Mike Johnson and his party even more, because we will be displaying and role-modeling what American democracy looks like to those who would have stolen it for their own personal gain. We must lead, and if the DNC remains hidden in the shadows, we must lead as a group. It is very possible to do this, so long as everyone puts aside their own pet interests long enough to unite over our constitution and the intent of our Founders. Win first and pursue individual interests afterwards.

This is plenty to digest so I will briefly summarize here.

By all measures that matter, last night’s SOTU was at best a break even for Trump and his party. In the long run, I personally would assess the disgraceful circus and clown show in front of us and the entire world, a loss. Without any significant issue that the administration can turn into a cause celeb, their future looks bleak. Don’t put it past the ringmaster Trump to create a staged spectacle or to start a war in a desperate attempt to hold onto power. Without his GOP congress, his last two years should he make to the end, will likely be hell for him, his party and for all of us too. Tyrants rarely go quietly. Now that we know this, it’s time to prepare for what comes with the administration’s demise.

The mess to clean up and the accountability we absolutely must have, will consume our nation. The partisan divide will worsen so long as we don’t deal effectively with foreign and domestic influencers who will do all possible to rekindle the fire in their base. This includes the likes of FOX News and similar far-right media, but also a few on the left as well. It will take unity regardless of political believes to come together and do what it takes to make sure this never occurs again. That explicitly means, bi-partisanship in congress and statehouses around our nation.

The great tragedy is that those who’ve been so radicalized as to support the insanity of Project 2025’s dismantling of our republic, murdering Americans in our streets, protecting pedophiles and ignoring both our laws, and the constitution they are built on, will remain radicalized, even if quiet for a time. The ideology of the Confederacy was a precursor to what we see today in Republican ideology. We did not heal properly after 1865 and it became the cancer that was never in remission. Those traits lived on, generation to generation. Racism, oligarchy, White Christian Nationalism and political violence were not American values during the Civil War, and they still aren’t.

Back Friday or Saturday with a new essay.

Paul

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TAT readers,

I just wanted let folks know that the reason my writing has been a bit erratic over the few months, has been that I just haven’t been up to it. Things are finally looking up and I am getting my feet back under me again, after battling some chronic issues. The way ahead looks bright and I am grateful. I know that I have owed a few of you responses to messages and I apologize for the delays. As this week and next week progresses, I hope to be caught up. Thanks to all of you most kindly for your patience.

There will be a new full essay tomorrow or Wednesday morning, with another later in the week. I hope to keep to a more regular schedule as things progress around here. There’s so much going on that we need to be aware of, that sitting on the bench, is not acceptable to me. Like most of you, I always feel better when I’m busy with the things I care about deeply, and that means writing here on Substack. Substack’s platform came at just the right time for many of us. For me, it has become a way to combat the evil in our White House and Congress, as well as to discuss other national security issues, in-depth.

I rarely decide what to write about until the morning that I begin pounding the keys. The rate of important developments seem to come by the hour, not the day or the week under the current administration. Some of the things I have considered today as subjects, if things do go awry overnight, is my perspective about some of the things we must do as a nation when this nightmare is over, and the handwriting is on the wall that it will be over, likely sooner than later. Humpty Trumpty’s perch on his wall, is precarious and appears to be more tenuous by the day.

We must pursue accountability from the top to the bottom of the Republican Party, along with their oligarchical taskmasters and enablers. I must emphasize here though, it is justice we seek, not revenge. Justice is part of being a patriotic American and pursuing it, a patriotic duty. Trump and Republicans chase revenge. Don’t be like them. We’ll have to reconnect with family and friends, while also remembering that the most brainwashed among them, will not change. This is something that I learned early in my counterterrorism career. Once someone passes a certain point on the spectrum of radicalization, the odds are extremely low, that they can regain a full sense of who they were, pre-radicalization. This is quite tragic for them and the rest of us, who were their family, friends and neighbors. America will not look dissimilar than it did post Civil War, whose Confederate ideology was quite similar to today’s GOP.

We must rewrite laws to ensure there is no chance of this occurring again. We need some significant changes at the Supreme Court, regarding how they are selected, held accountable with a firm set of ethics that can be enforced. The three branches of government must reaffirm and harden the “checks and balances” so brilliantly included in our constitution, primarily due to James Madison’s scholarship.

We must also take a broom to the overt corruption in congress, enabled by a pro-oligarchy SCOTUS. Damn Mitch McConnell for the mess we’re in across the street from the Capital, at the Supreme Court. More than any other person, he has turned our highest court into one that sucks up to billionaires and twists our law into pretzels, in order to justify supporting the fully far-right, MAGA Republican Party.

These are just a handful of the thoughts turning around between my ears this evening. There’s so much more to this line of thinking and so it will demand a full essay, as our news cycle allows. It’s time to start pondering, all that comes afterward.

Off now for this evening and back soon.

Thanks again to all for your patience,

Paul

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TAT readers,

I wasn’t going to write today however… while doing research on the dismantling of the VA by the Trump administration and drastic cuts to our VA healthcare and related benefits, I felt it a duty to raise the alarm for my fellow brothers and sisters-in-arms.

It is not just the VA issues either. As I have written often, Pete Hegseth on instructions from the Oval Office, enabled by the GOP-led congress and Project 2025 enforcer, Russel Vought, are not building, but rather undermining the finest military in the world. I will share links to the prior essays regarding the seemingly endless abuse of our military and veterans by this Republican administration, after this introduction to today’s essay.

Like my fellow vets I am deeply frustrated, so I will caution myself to keep this below the level of a rant. In the MAGA GOP era, the administration’s fake-patriots love to wear and wave swag about how much they love America and the military, but this is just a charade performed for their willfully uninformed and brainwashed base. Their intentions aren’t only anti-military but un-American, which denies them any status as a “patriot.” Pete Hegseth who is “whitewashing” our military, is as incompetent as he is a racist, misogynist and a drunk. Actions not words tell the truth about a person or an organization. Today’s GOP’s, actions are painfully un-American. Today I will discuss the GOP’s full-frontal assault on veterans via those aforementioned, administration “political Kommissars.”

As a disclaimer, I do want to first acknowledge that I am yet to meet any VA employee that wasn’t professional, kind, helpful and dedicated to serving Veterans. Many are Vets themselves. Before launching into today’s work, below are the promised links for those who care for more background reading.

• The 118th Congress has 72 Republican Veterans unwilling to fulfil their oaths to the military or their elected office.

  

• President Bone Spurs' latest attack on us, "losers and suckers."

  

• A mini and painful rant about Trump's overtly racist attacks on the US military and our deceased heroes.

  

• DOGE, Trump and the GOP, are wreaking havoc on the health of our Veterans, me included

  

• Trump at Arlington, - by Paul Cobaugh

  

The overt dishonesty I have been watching from the administration’s VA and related officials, demands addressing. Anyone who has ever served our nation in uniform are familiar with some version of the saying, "when you join the military you write Uncle Sam a blank check," one which can be redeemed for any amount, up to and including making the ultimate sacrifice in the service of our nation.” When we raise our right hands and swear that sacred oath, “to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, we are vocally putting an exclamation mark after our signature on our enlistment contract. We keep to that contract scrupulously, while the Republican Party is taking a blowtorch to the US government’s end of the bargain.

So as we begin to expose the nefarious future for our Veterans, let’s start with the primary points in the graphic below. These are just the tip-of-the-iceberg as that there are countless, less understood assaults on our benefits.

The report above is much in line with that of the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute’s assessment. In their assessment we see the intention of the threat to Veterans by the administration and GOP, and which is based exclusively on their extreme-right wing and unconstitutional Project 2025. This is not first attempt to assault vets. He came after us in his first administration as well. They intended to hurt veterans from the very beginning and the willful ignorance of those who voted Republican and believed their lies, enabled them.

"Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance have made clear that they want to privatize the Veterans Health Administration(VHA) , the health care system run by the Department of Veterans Affairs.  And they have a detailed plan on how to do just that, courtesy of  the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a 920 page roadmap on how to dismantle the federal government and each and every one of its Departments. According to a report published by the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute, Project 2025 aims to dismantle one of the most vital institutions in the country when it comes to serving veterans."

- Project 2025’s War on Veterans
- Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute
- U.S. Army veteran Julian LaRosa
- October, 2025

Let’s talk a moment about some of the specifics regarding the GOP’s assault on Veterans. Despite the whining and combative outbursts by VA Secretary, Doug Collins, his leadership and adherence to the Project 2025 agenda, is according to the AFGE, Association of Federal and Government Employees, an attack on our benefits. They are now sounding the alarms as they watch Collins deprive of us of our benefits, and he is fully backed by the GOP side of the aisle. In fiscal year2025 alone, the VA was chopped by 40,000 employees, a dramatic cut, since that even Collins says the VA is understaffed. The problem with Collins, just like the GOP, is that he lies. I’ve seen him show up to hearings whining about being understaffed and in the next, discuss even more staff cuts.

Below are some of the specifics from the AFGE report.

"The staffing cuts have resulted in longer wait times for veterans seeking care – particularly for mental health services, where the average wait time to book a new appointment doubled from 17 days in May 2024 to 35 days currently. At one VA facility in California, the wait time has ballooned to 134 days after losing 7 out of 12 mental health providers."

"What we are seeing is not normal. It’s not normal attrition. It’s not a normal trend line. It is the result of a constant policy, beginning with DOGE and sustained by the Trump administration, to discourage and deter employees, skilled professionals in health care and other areas, from continuing their work for our nation’s heroes and that is unacceptable.”

"The staffing cuts have resulted in longer wait times for veterans seeking care – particularly for mental health services, where the average wait time to book a new appointment doubled from 17 days in May 2024 to 35 days currently. At one VA facility in California, the wait time has ballooned to 134 days after losing 7 out of 12 mental health providers."

"Some members of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, which hosted Wednesday’s hearing, expressed skepticism of Collins’ plan to slash the number of regional offices—known as Veterans Integrated Service Networks, or VISNs—from 18 to 5, suggesting it would centralize decision making away from the field in favor of the department’s headquarters." 

"During the press call, AFGE National VA Council President M.J. Burke said the union is hearing alarm bells from across the department that the administration’s policies are affecting veterans’ care.

“By the end of 2026, most facilities will have lost 2 to 5 percent of their psychologists – hard-hit locations like Seattle, Buffalo, and Chillicothe are seeing double-digit attrition. Why? Because over the last year, VA leadership slashed jobs, stripped away flexible remote work, and forced staff into overcrowded spaces. These punishing policies haven’t just lowered morale – they end up compromising the quality of care we provide,” Burke said."

- New Report Details How Trump’s Policies Are Harming Veterans, VA Workers
- AFGE
- January 26th, 2026

In the AFGE article is a link to the 52 page report from the SENATE COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS, and I recommend veterans read every word, but also caution that they may wish to do so sitting down, and with a strong adult beverage. The assault on Vets by this administration is beyond unconscionable. In the graphic below are some of the types of VA personnel and their numbers fired unceremoniously.

To make matters worse, in a time when Veteran suicide rates, tragically continue to climb faster than in the general public, cuts in staffing and administrative chaos dramatically increased wait times to see a therapist. Across the board, these cuts and mismanagement have sounded alarms at the APA, American Psychological Association as explained in an October 2025 article. This is a directly the result of not applying analysis to the DOGE cuts, and which were supported by the Secretary of the VA, Scott Collins. Russell Vought, Donald Trump, Elon Musk and the GOP are forcing their restructuring and privatization plans for veteran healthcare, which by all honest analysis, puts our hard-earned benefits at risk. This restructuring is also part of the Project 2025 Plan.

This brings to another point of contention for veterans, the costs associated with their intended privatization, increases our budget by paying for-profit greedy healthcare corporations for outsourced veteran healthcare. With this current administration so overtly grifting by contracting with their billionaire buddies, evidence shows that we that taxpayers will pay for their increased profits, and of which the Trump family will also profit. Those who have served in uniform are very well acquainted with waste, fraud and abuse and the overwhelming majority of us, holding those who grift our tax dollars, in the utmost scorn. We’re a serious lot when it comes to honoring our oath and our collective integrity.

The last primary issue to call your attention to is one that has most of the veteran community up in arms, the proposed cuts to disability compensation for service related injuries and illness. This is especially true regarding older or elderly vets. A part of that contract we raised our right for when we began our time in service, is now being reneged on by the very government that issued that contract. The depth of betrayal on this issue hurts vets both deeply do to their betrayal. We did our part and now we expect the US government to do theirs. For some reason, today’s GOP is fine with breaking the contract, for those of us who “wrote that blank check” to the American people.

I have faith in the American people. The Trump regime might sell us out, but the American people won’t. The problem is that they don’t know because this is a veteran-centric issue, and our lives are often murky to those who have not worn the cloth of our nation. One of the primary purposes for this already too-long essay, is that if I have done my job and explained the issue properly, that you will share this with the veterans and veteran service organizations in your communities. Please stand with your veteran community against the ongoing betrayal by this administration. We only wish to have this administration and the Republican Congress that enables them, to honor their part of the contract, that we have faithfully honored with our oaths.

Thank you so kindly for bearing this long essay,

Paul

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TAT readers,

I hope that all government workers are finding a little peace on this President’s Day. Over at DHS, there is less joy as that they are working without pay or their promised $ 50,000 bonuses. This is all because Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi, Tom Homan etc., brought this on themselves and their departments, by murdering, assaulting and violating First and Fourth Amendment rights of US citizens, while denying due process to everyone detained. Their brutal assault on American citizens, legal residents, those legally in our Asylum system and undocumented immigrants as well, have turned nearly 70% of America against them.

I am one of those disgusted at what falsely serves as law enforcement. Still, this is not the biggest threat to our republic… voter suppression is and in our republic, there are few things more un-American. For a couple of decades, the Republican Party has done all possible to suppress voters in certain demographics.

No American with a little common-sense, a modicum of intelligence and a moral compass is any longer buying the “road apples" the administration and the GOP are selling. Between ICE brutality and the GOP’s insistence on protecting pedophiles, they have proved themselves devoid of these three traits. This is why all of the GOP’s rhetoric about the SAVE Act, is unconscionably dishonest. Let’s review this blatantly un-American legislation and some of their previous efforts in today’s essay. It will surprise most Americans just how deviant this bill and previous GOP voter suppression laws are.

First up, what is this voter suppression bill called the SAVE Act"?

Let’s begin with what appears on the bill from Congress.gov.

"Introduced in House (01/03/2025)
Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act or the SAVE Act

This bill requires individuals to provide documentary proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections.

Specifically, the bill prohibits states from accepting and processing an application to register to vote in a federal election unless the applicant presents documentary proof of U.S. citizenship. The bill specifies what documents are considered acceptable proof of U.S. citizenship, such as identification that complies with the REAL ID Act of 2005 that indicates U.S. citizenship.

Further, the bill (1) prohibits states from registering an individual to vote in a federal election unless, at the time the individual applies to register to vote, the individual provides documentary proof of U.S. citizenship; and (2) requires states to establish an alternative process under which an applicant may submit other evidence to demonstrate U.S. citizenship.

Each state must take affirmative steps on an ongoing basis to ensure that only U.S. citizens are registered to vote, which shall include establishing a program to identify individuals who are not U.S. citizens using information supplied by certain sources.

Additionally, states must remove noncitizens from their official lists of eligible voters.

The bill allows for a private right of action against an election official who registers an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship."

The bill establishes criminal penalties for certain offenses, including registering an applicant to vote in a federal election who fails to present documentary proof of U.S. citizenship.

- H.R.22 - SAVE Act
119th Congress (2025-2026) |
- Congress.gov
- Representative Chip Roy

Trying to pass this heinous piece of legislation so close to our upcoming elections will make it nearly impossible for over 21 million voters, to acquire acceptable proof of citizenship in time to register to vote, and for some of the reasons expressed in the League of Women Voters, LWV public statement.

For full transparency, Chip Roy is shamefully my congressman. As with nearly all Republican congressmen and senators, Chip is as dishonest as the day is long, even cruel and often unconstitutional in his opinions. His bill, like a long list of previous GOP voter suppression laws and policies at the state level, will continue to diminish voter rolls for dishonest and unconstitutional purposes. Every single one of these laws and policies target disadvantaged communities, especially Americans of color.

There is no debate about this for those who understand our system of government, despite our right-wing controlled SCOTUS, US Supreme Court, continuing to approve of the GOP’s far-right agenda. In the Trump era, SCOTUS has taken a decidedly, far-right turn, including approval for racial profiling by ICE operations, while denying race in Affirmative Action cases. For those seeking more background, please see the previous TAT essays on the subject of our far-right SCOTUS, below.

• John Roberts’ SCOTUS, is legalizing a Confederacy 2.0

  

• SCOTUS just stood in the middle of the street and shot the constitution, and nothing can be done about it.

  

• SCOTUS, our very own Kangaroo Court - by Paul Cobaugh

  

My personal concerns fall very much along the lines articulated by the famously non-partisan, League of Women Voters/ LWV, who see this as obstructionism to Americans exercising their constitutionally guaranteed, voting rights. Please see below, the text of the LWV’s public statement.

"Congress continues to introduce bills that would require voters to present documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) to register and/or vote. In the 119th Congress, three major pieces of legislation have been introduced to require DPOC to vote, including: 

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which passed the House in 2025 and would require citizenship documentation to register to vote, and, more recently, The SAVE America Act and the Make Elections Great Again Act, which have even stricter components than the SAVE Act, like requirements for voters to present DPOC both at registration and the polls, and for absentee ballots to be received by election day. Collectively, we are referring to these pieces of legislation as the “SAVE Act suite of bills.” 

It is already illegal for noncitizens to register and vote in federal or state elections. Requiring documentary proof of American citizenship to register to vote in federal elections is unnecessary and seeks to divide us. It simply creates another barrier to voting. 

Many communities of eligible voters would be unnecessarily burdened by the requirements of the SAVE Act. Among them are: 

Military voters, who would be required to present documentation every time they re-register to vote when their family moves.
Families who have been impacted by natural disasters and lost important documentation, who would be required to jump through hoops to replace these documents while also going through the traumatic process of rebuilding their lives.

Married women and other Americans who have changed their names, who would also be required to secure updated documentation to register to vote.
People of color. Compared to white US citizens, citizens of color are three times more likely to lack documents such as birth certificates, passports, naturalization certificates, or certificates of citizenship or face difficulties accessing them. For example, while approximately half of all American adults possess a passport, two-thirds of Black Americans do not. 

Americans do not need MORE obstacles to vote. The SAVE Act would create one more barrier to the voting process, as many eligible voters do not have easy access to the necessary documents.

Tell Congress to oppose the SAVE Act suite of bills."

- Tell Congress to oppose the SAVE Act Suite of bills
- League of Women Voters

After the historic voter turnout in our 2020 Election that trounced the Trump campaign, Republicans immediately commenced a coordinated strategy to restrict voter access. The GOP in fact uses what most would call a “playbook. ”In the years since, this trend continues and now we’re faced with this new “suite of bills” to dramatically reduce voter turnout. Talk about selling out democracy! Still, it fits their profile of abuse towards any anti-GOP voter, especially those in minority or marginalized communities. White Christian Nationalism is alive and inundating today’s GOP. Here in TX, Gov. Greg Abbott’s Texas Taliban, a.k.a. the Republican Party of Texas, have been suppressing voter turnout in non-GOP and all immigrant and disabled communities to a point, that it is nearly an artform.

The impact of passage of the SAVE ACT is estimated to negatively affect over 21 million US voters.

To impact marginalized voting communities more, the Act does not allow for online submissions, a devastating impact to disabled and elderly voters. Finally last year, a Federal Court overturned a Texas law that said we could not give disabled voters to the polls. Yep, as we say in Texas, Greg Abbott and his Texas Taliban, are, “bootlickers to Trump” and will do anything to make him happy. Remember that it was Texas that shamefully led Trump’s campaign to illegally gerrymander seats for Republicans. They passed the new maps over the outcries of a substantial majority of Texans of both parties. I use Texas often as an example of the most heinous aspects of today’s MAGA GOP, but every other so-called, “red-state” is nearly as bad.

With the current ICE operations, even immigrants with legal status and US citizenship are cautious about spending too much time outside their own homes, often for their family’s sake. As is noted in the section regarding the League of Women Voters, it clearly explains the extreme disadvantage to military personnel. As retired US Army, this especially is like “nails on a chalkboard” to me and many of my military brothers and sisters-in-arms. Our votes while deployed are already only counted as an afterthought, or in case a race is too close to call. Yes, it is disgraceful of the GOP.

Then there’s the blatant lying about election fraud from the Republican Party. Some of the most comprehensive research on election fraud actually comes from the nefarious, Heritage Foundation, who authored and published, Project 2025, and who has been tracking such cases in detail for over half a century. In the graphic below you can clearly see how paltry the claims of voter fraud are.

There’s a lot to digest in today’s essay, so I will offer now a quick summary, or rather a bottom-line to the willful intent of the Republican Party, to suppress anti-GOP voters. Remember, we are already starting the midterm elections, going uphill after decades of GOP voter suppression. We cannot allow the SAVE Act deny us our constitutionally guaranteed rights. In our constitutional republic, few things are more sacred than our voting rights. Chief Justice John Roberts via his Citizens United decision already imposed the burden of unlimited black money into our elections. Those same billionaires and some oligarchs, are now the ones profiting from this criminal administration. They buy our elections like most of us buy groceries from our local supermarkets.

The soulless Trump-era GOP hasn’t only stuck a knife into the belly of our republic, now they are hellbent on twisting that knife, by suppressing voter turnout. They violate several of the Amendments daily, especially the First and Fourth. I’ll be damned if I will stand still for anymore. To this end, I’ll leave you with somewhat of a prediction for November’s elections; I nor the American people will accept the outcome of the elections, should we feel cheated by Republican tactics, actions leading up to and during the election cycle. This is especially true if there is any indication that by any serious means, the GOP is caught with their grubby little paws disrupting our elections. There are already well articulated threats issuing from experts and credible think tanks. We must be vigilant.

At our founding, we booted out an oppressive King. During the Civil War, we stood against a traitorous Confederacy. It’s in our DNA, to take on the cowards of the GOP and thrash them appropriately at the polls or elsewhere should it be required to restore our republic. As I discussed last week in two essays, the momentum has shifted to the resistance. As a reminder to readers, the worst thing that we can do in restoring the brutal assault on America by the Republican party, is to make this a partisan, blue vs. red fight. Those folks waving “blue wave” flags are actually undermining what the resistance is all about and its chance of success. Resisting is to save our republic, not for a party, but for all Americans. Shouting “blue wave” puts off independent voters, who want to restore our republic, without affiliating with a party.

The last thing I will briefly mention is, “where the hell is the DNC?” I’ve heard no narrative outside of the courageous Democrats in Congress taking to media. There is no leadership, no narrative of their intentions, no agenda or otherwise. They are behaving like the failed campaigners they’ve been for decades. If their campaign consultants don’t pull their heads out of somewhere they won’t need a haircut, it will be they who allowed fascism to displace democracy in America. We don’t need their help, we need their checkbook. They clearly don’t know what to do with campaign contributions.

We must do this ourselves. As long-time readers know, I despise the concept of political parties. At this point in time, our goal is to not only reset our nation, but to remodel it to prevent a Trump era from ever happening again. No political party owns the rights to our nation of laws. We’re in this together and must rebuild and reinforce… together.

Cheers fellow citizens and patriots,

Publius Redux

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TAT family and friends,

I cannot remember a time when I could bring you good news to begin and end a week during the Trump and MAGA era. This week though… this isn’t cheerleading, it’s reality. Today are my thoughts about entering this long sought phase for honest Americans. I am writing from a “stream of consciousness” point of view today. What follows is me just allowing my thoughts fall onto the keyboard without a filter. The suffering has been immense for those of us who adhere to our laws, constitution and true national values. Roughly a third of our voters, still remain under the spell of far-right propaganda, largely a transplanted from Russian far-right ideology, that prevents them from seeing reality and the truths about it. This will no longer help them and all because, Humpty Trumpty, is nearing a great fall.

Yes, it’s true that the walls are closing in on this administration and the Republican Party that enables his most cruel and corrupt behavior. Let’s also not forget that those billionaires and spineless media companies, are also beginning to see the end as well. We must never forget what these disgraceful men and women have imposed onto our republic. As we can see, the fallout from the Epstein files is globally shaking the core of governments and the reputations of soulless men guilty of viciously preying on our children. The cruel and illegal DHS/ ICE raids along with the Epstein issue are the primary reasons that the dam broke against Republicans and especially the administration.

Now, there’s no finger big enough to plug the holes in their fascist dam. This was all preventable and we must never forget who are to blame, including Republican voters. As I noted earlier in the week in an essay titled, How about a little good news to start the week, there are several categories of those we must hold accountable once we’ve restored our republic. Trump, the Republican Party and those voters who put him back into office anyway are the primary villains however, let’s not forget the oligarchs and the far-right majority on the Supreme Court either. Trump’s psychology renders him irredeemable and the same applies to every sitting Republican in Congress, and of course the voters who viciously defend him against the rest of us, their fellow Americans.

As I mentioned in last Tuesday’s essay, “GOP voters are adults and should have known better.” They all knew when they cast their ballots, that they voted for a lifelong sexual predator and probable pedophile. They knew he was as corrupt as the day is long. They knew he wouldn’t adhere to the law nor the constitution our laws are based on. Now… it is difficult to have any sympathy for most who will experience shunning in the post-Trump era. If they had stopped after the first administration, I’d give them a “mulligan” and like most of you, I did offer them a safe harbor. Every one of them betrayed that accommodation.

This week I believe was finally the straw that broke that poor proverbial camel’s back. The damage has been done. I have never been someone to hold a grudge but after the cruel and intentional dismantling of our republic, while robbing our Treasury blind and allying us with the “worst of the worst” world despots, I just may break my rule. I do my best to forgive, but can promise that I will never forget.

This week, the fallout from the small amount of Epstein files released is accelerating ever-faster, with each new revelation. Billionaires and Republicans are running scared, and they should be. It’s been a really bad week for the administration and now, the announcement that a second CSG/ Carrier Strike Group is headed towards the Middle East, makes one wonder if a “wag the dog” event against Iran, may be in store as a diversion from the blowtorch heat charring the hindquarters, after a few of the revelations this week.

Let’s look at a couple of these revelations, that I believe are hastening the end of this Republican nightmare faster than we thought possible.

1. Minnesota’s honest citizens booted Trump’s thugs out of Minneapolis by overtly demonstrating extraordinary courage and patriotism. These patriots are now all over the country in the face of DHS brutality and murders. Every city ICE visits, demonstrates the same as Minnesotans, courageously standing up for their guaranteed constitutional rights, against the violent and murderous operations by those who ignore the law. You can almost hear patriotic music playing in your heart, when watching decent Americans stand against tyranny.

2. Speaking of DHS, in today’s WSJ/ Wall Street Journal, the news section, not the opinion page where Rupert Murdoch’s far-right opinion writers have a safe harbor, an expose’ of Kristin Noem was devastating. Some of the allegations range from her reported affair with Corey Lewandowski, a long-time Trump sycophant to mocking a child with Downs Syndrome. Of course like much of the administration, he comes with long list of sexual harassment allegations against him, despite being married with children. Apparently he and Kristi’s affair is an open secret at DHS, according to credible reporting.

   

   1. Kristi Noem needs no help in being unpopular. She turns the stomach of most decent Americans. She’s responsible not only for shooting her puppy, but now, also innocent Americans legally exercising their constitutional rights. The death toll continues to amount. She spends as freely with her new monstrous additional DHS funding as she does on her cosplay outfits at her ad nauseum photo ops. Thank goodness that DHS funding expires tonight at midnight, and there will be partial shutdowns at the agency beginning tomorrow.

3. I don’t have words for the lawless murders of innocent Americans in their own streets by these Executive Branch thugs, nor the constant unprovoked violent assaults on peaceful protesters exercising their First Amendment Rights.

4. As people have a chance to review the latest tranche of documents, the revelations are sheer depravity and the fallout has been swift, mostly outside the US. In this latest batch comes a whistleblower tip completely ignored by both Noem and Bondi, including an allegation of murder in Oklahoma of a 19-year-old Oklahoma woman who had called the sheriff to report that she’d been raped by both Epstein and Trump, in 2000.

   

   1. Roughly a million mentions of Trump in the files and for those who have read some of them as I have, they would make any decent person break into tears, again, as I did. The victims were children and abused beyond anything most could even imagine, and I don’t recommend trying either. And yet, the overwhelming bulk of the files still have not been released and those that are… are in redaction hell. Don’t Republican voters love their daughters and granddaughters? These GOP members of congress, sure as hell don’t love ours.

5. And then there was the Pam Bondi trainwreck hearing that disgusted even some of her own party. An endless number of words have already been written by others describing her shrill, cruel display of indifference to the horrifically abused survivors, standing right behind her. By a show of hands, they courageously called out her overt dishonesty and Bondi refused to even look at them.

   

6. The fallout from those revealed in the files, has come fast and is taking down powerful men and women. Here’s just a few:

   1. Jamie Dimon, CEO of Bank of America, is also back under fire for a couple of reasons.

      1. First, his sworn testimony in a 2023 deposition about Epstein is now suspect of not being truthful.

      2. Secondly, and this is the big one, Bank of America is being investigated for the countless transactions they made for Epstein, that were suspect or what should have been, “red flagged” for their suspicious nature.

7. Dimon is not alone either. There’s the Dubai Sultan, Ahmed Bin Sulayem who was forced out of his high position because in the files, he is quoted as saying to Epstein in an email, “I loved the torture video.”

8. Today high-powered counsel for Goldman-Sachs, Kathy Ruemmler was forced out due to her close association with Epstein, only beginning after he had already been convicted of child sex trafficking offences, the documents show.

9. A former Norwegian Prime Minister has already been charged, while others are under investigation.

10. In the UK, Peter Mandelson has been fired and resigns from the House of Lords

    

There is a very long list of the rich and powerful men and women under intense scrutiny, and as they should be. It is the cabal of the rich and powerful that put this criminal administration into power, as well as who profits from it. It is these folks that have undermined our republic and with Chief Justice John Roberts assistance, via his decision in the Citizens United case that permitted unlimited dark money into our politics.

Many of these rich and powerful men especially, are also the ones responsible for our affordability crisis. They rape children and then turn around and rape our wallets. Oligarchy is alive and well these days, much to the misfortune of the rest of us.

It’s been roughly 15 years since the Trump and MAGA insanity has infected our electorate and if we do not put an end to it now and plug the holes in our laws, we won’t just have an affordability crisis, we’ll be serfs. Honest Americans sense this deep in their patriotic hearts. It is that imaginary line I often reference, that Americans who abide by our founding values, will not allow enemies to cross, before we plant our feet and say, “no more.” I believe we are there right at this moment. That’s the American spirit that I was raised with and still believe with every fiber of my being.

As I noted on Tuesday, non-far-right social media now, is aggressively unkind to Republican candidates. They were smothered at last November’s elections. You can smell the fear on them and the administration. I will let you in on a little secret… the reason for all of the full-spectrum election suppression coming this administration is a strong indicator of that fear. If the administration had control and knew they could win, they wouldn’t care about the massive outpouring of righteous anger from the rest of us. The “resistance” is not a blue vs. red fight, it’s is a fight by honest Americans of all political stripes who will not back up one step further, no matter how aggressive Trump’s little Executive Branch of Brownshirts become. We aren’t having it anymore and will never back down.

Apparently, me writing stream of consciousness, leaves everyone with an already too long essay. I will wrap things up with a couple of admonitions about what we must do, if we are to not ever experience another Trump or MAGA-like party.

Summary

Some of this might seem painfully simple but if it were working, we would not be in this mess. These are listed in no particular order.

1. Do whatever it takes to reverse Citizens United and legislate laws that protect us from having our elections purchased by oligarchs and lesser billionaires.

2. As a follow up point to the first, streamline and adjust our tax code so it is fair, and doesn’t create anymore class-warfare. For example, if `Jeff Bezos can spend $50 million dollars on his wedding, he can pay his share of taxes.

3. Legislate an enforceable code of ethics for our Supreme Court. I could hardly be more disgusted with the blatant violations of ethics by mostly the Republican side. I would have said conservative, but Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and of course Roberts have demonstrated far-right traits, not conservatism.

4. Make teaching a profession that people can live decently from and give them honest history to study, not this revisionist BS pushed by Republicans. Citizens must know who they are and where they hail from, in order to have a national identity that they will stand up for. There is no excuse for how far the US has fallen in global rankings regarding education. Here in Texas for example, we now have a disgraceful “biblical curriculum in public schools.” The state gives the schools that adopt it, more money than they give to those who don’t. Apparently, no Republican reads our constitution, and are thoroughly baffled by the Establishment Clause in our Bill of Rights, which separates religion from government.

5. Create and enforce anti-monopoly laws that work. Teddy Roosevelt got it. Trump and his enabling party, don’t want to, “get it.” This especially applies to our media. Media oligarchs control what we see, read, hear etc. They are largely responsible for the massive mis/ disinformation threat we suffer from as a nation. Keeping us at each other’s throats, makes them obscenely wealthy.

6. Either block off Wall Street and bulldoze it, or legislate firm and corruption-proof oversight, including the willingness to prosecute aggressively those who abuse our trust.

7. Last but not least is a personal pet peeve… stop paying congress when they shut down our government. Make them come to us to bless any raise they give themselves in the future, and if they commit felonies like insider trading, prosecute them instead of a slap on the hand or censure.

   

I’ve gone on long enough by now and so, I wish everyone a marvelous weekend. The momentum is now firmly with us. We must not let off the gas until they are gone. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could push Humpty Trumpty off his wall by our Fourth of July, 250th birthday?

Viva Libertad

Paul

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TAT friends and followers,

Let’s begin this week with a little welcome good news about our current constitutional crisis. How could I help but be feeling more optimistic after what transpired at halftime during yesterday’s Super Bowl. Bad Bunny, Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga and countless other performers, put on a show about what America is all about… DEI. Yes, just like Thomas Jefferson’s immortal quote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I see no exceptions in Jefferson’s words about race, religion, sexual orientation etc. It simply says that Americans abide by the concepts of the Scottish Enlightenment, that our nation was founded upon. Too bad the administration and supporting GOP, don’t read the constitution.

Professionally speaking, taking the pulse of a nation, group or individual is a professional skill developed over my long years serving the US Special Operations Command. Spoiler alert, that pulse is now beginning to race for the resistance, while diminishing in the Republican community. MAGA has seen its best days and is now slowly being whittled down by Americans who abide by our constitution and national values. Republicans have served fake-patriotic values in the Trump era exclusively. The resistance, is not about party, it’s about honest Americans of all political stripes, saying “hell no” to the dismantling of our constitutional republic.

Those fake values, have now cost the party, the outer edges of their base and continue to bleed supporters. At home, in neighborhoods across America and the bloody city streets, running with the blood of real patriots, America has turned the corner and is now… coming for the administration, their party and their oligarchs in November. When I analyze all that is occurring today in the influence world, the results are clear, we have now turned the corner and now have far more momentum than Trump and the Republican Party and their shock troops.

What does it mean that we’ve turned a corner on the fascism of the Republican Party? I have long said and I reiterate here, “that the American people have a patriotic line in their hearts, that cannot be crossed” by either foreign adversaries or the GOP’s traitorous, Project 2025. I do admit to being wrong about the timing of crossing that line, erroneously believing it would be last November, but it was inevitable that it would reveal itself, based on our history. Yes, the very history that this racist administration is doing all possible to “whitewash.” You cannot push true patriots too hard before you regret it. True American patriots have a stubborn streak a mile long. We don’t quit, rest or deviate from our mission, especially the protection of our constitution and nation. The US prior to WW II was not terribly dissimilar to what we experience today, but throughout our history, we reunite in the face of external or domestic, severe threats. It’s simply part of, “who we are as a nation.”

The first time this did not occur was during the 2016 election, where Russian interference in cooperation with the Trump campaign, conned Republican voters into believing that Russia was no longer the “bad guy.” How wrong they were. Just ask Ukraine who was severely hampered on the battlefield due to the leadership of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, the Republican-led US Congress and of course… Trump. They withheld funding for Ukraine on multiple occasions, in order to help Putin. The Republican Party and their voters, sold out not only our national values of defending liberty, but the Ukrainian people as well.

So, what are some of the indicators I look at when assessing the state of things in our nation, including the political climate?

First, there are the easy tools to keep tabs on, like polling numbers. In most recent polling, not only is Trump at his lowest approval rating, but so is the Republican Party for enabling his actions. In recent polling from the Associated Press-NORC polling folks, comes a devasting look at their unpopularity. There are several graphics in the polling numbers article from the AP but I will only share a couple in the body of this essay. The rest are at the embedded link in the last sentence.

There are several other more subtle clues, such as social media from a professional observer perspective. For example I will use Facebook to make my point, simply because of its popularity among so many citizens of voting age. During the 2016 election, Zuckerberg allowed the personal data of US citizens to fall into the hands of Russia, who was then collaborating with the Trump campaign. They were fined 5 billion dollars for this violation of American law. Zuck doesn’t care because he and his devious little cyber engineers, are now up to far worse shenanigans that impact each FB subscriber account and our national security.

I will add a short note here that I am currently working on a paper that will outline the aforementioned, “shenanigans.” In my line of work, data has the potential to be the nuclear bomb of influencing audiences. It’s a long explanation but in short, everything we do online creates data. That data offers deep clues to each users personality or as I say in my Narrative Warfare expertise, “identity.” Influence operators then use those insights to do what is called, “micro-targeting.” This is just a long way of saying that marketers, enemies and more, use that data to influence us to believe whatever they wish. Unethical marketers, who are annoyingly flooding us with ads at every turn, use these tactics as well, to pick your pockets and line theirs.

Identity analysis is intensely complicated and understood by very few, even within the majority of the US national security community. Operating with Narrative Warfare, is still far outside the abilities of our national security community. Quite obviously, today’s DNC is another entity that refuses to learn about the cognitive warfare that American politics have become. If the Democratic Party had any talent at all in this field, they would not be on the losing streak they have been on and we wouldn’t be in the crisis we are in now.

"Narrative Warfare is the battle for control of the identity of audiences. Control the identity and you control the audience."

- Cobaugh 2025

Anyway, data provides some valuable insights into the identity of audiences, and this is one of the reasons that the massive theft and misuse of all of our data by the Peter Thiel and Elon Musk is so acutely dangerous. The only good news is that our adversaries are just as incompetent at Narrative Warfare as we are, but this won’t last. Our national security research entities are perpetually on the wrong analytical and research tracks, falsely believing that technology alone can solve for identity. They are dead wrong and have wasted billions of our tax dollars, chasing their tails. The administration, via Musk and Thiel has secured our personal data from most US government agencies, including our Social Security data base, Treasury, OMB, the IRS, HHS, Department of Education, and the Department of Labor, to name only a few. Thiel is busy building a monster database for the administration with all of our stolen data, in order to weaponize it against US citizens.

This is what makes Facebook dangerous. As noted, Zuckerberg, whose sniveling subservience to Trump is painful to watch, is up to other tricks of technology to influence Americans. His work around the globe has been dangerous to others as well and has been is condemned for contributing to the genocide of the Rohingya people of Myanmar. Our largest data collectors, such as FB, LinkedIn, Amazon, Twitter or X and others have a very poor ethics records and should never be trusted… not even for a second.

As for taking the pulse, some fascinating insights have appeared on FB in the past month or so. Here’s how it goes; Republican Congressmen have apparently been instructed to go on a “charm offensive” on FB. This means that they post fluff pieces ad nauseum. For example; photo ops with local business leaders, law enforcement or local Republicans. They are trying to rebuild a relationship with their base after being primarily and honestly blamed for the government shutdown, the violent and illegal ICE operations that deny due process, injure protestors and murder US citizens. Here’s the kicker, it’s not working. At the moment, the Republican Party’s popularity is sinking faster than the Titanic with voters, and they’re being trounced on popular social media platforms, other than ones like Truth Social or other far-right sites. The American people are no longer having it.

So when I look at FB and see these GOP lawmakers’ posts, I click on the little emoji buttons and see how many of those buttons are happy faces, angry faces, laughing faces etc. Those numbers are roughly 70% of the time in my informal polling, very negative towards the Republicans posting them. The comments against them can be downright brutal and numerous. In fact, as I was just typing I got a notification that a MAGA republican’s post that I and countless other had commented on, took down the post after being torched for their MAGA ways, by a long list of commenters. Our voices do matter. The American people have been awakened and just as the Japanese Admiral who strategized the attack on Pearl Harbor is quoted after turning his fleet around and heading home, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve"

On FB, like other platforms, that brash arrogance from Republicans post-election, is something that we have all come to despise. Other than their own platforms like Truth Social and others, their attitude has had some adjustments. They’re still there but tend hide in private groups and only come out insult. Of course, GOP “influencers” also deploy the endless number of bots and fake accounts, that FB refuses to protect us from. Those bots are the majority of the commenters expressing that insidious arrogance we saw a year ago. To some extent, their lack of popularity are indicative of what is also happening in the small towns and city blocks of America towards the MAGA crowd. Unaddressed affordability by this greedy administration, is also driving away voters.

As someone raised in the Midwest near Amish communities I am aware of a tradition called “shunning,” Shunning is based on Amish law and is more or less, the excommunication of a church member for violating church law. Outside the Amish community, shunning still exists informally but is not based on any church law. In simple terms shunning refers to someone no longer worthy of associating with decent folks or their community. On FB, Republicans, their politicians and especially political leadership are slowly being shunned. This is a notable recent development on the platform.

LinkedIn, long a bastion of Russian and MAGA operations, is even beginning to slowly limit political content, even though it was the good guys that LinkedIn used to punish harshly for fighting back, rather than the Russians and MAGA crowd. In fact, Newsweek wrote a long expose’ about this in 2017 and the article was written by the GOAT of US national security and intelligence reporting, Jeff Stein, now of SpyTalk, now on Substack. I was included in this article along with a handful of colleagues who had joined battle with Russia and MAGA on their platform.

Then my friends, I include the massive numbers of Americans in the streets. From the first large rallies against this criminal administration, the numbers have climbed at an astonishing rate. In the streets where ICE and the rest of Trump’s Executive Branch thugs do their worst, the numbers have grown even faster and now represent massive numbers of American voters of all political stripes. Morale within DHS, ICE, CBP etc. is plummeting as agents with good reputations, are forced to participate in these violent ICE Immigration Operations. The cracks are not only visible in the shell of the administration, it’s becoming cancerous from within. Our job, is to turn those ever-expanding cracks, into a complete break. This means a stronger offense and applied at the critical fractures.

For example, from nearly the beginning of this administration, I have strongly and often recommended targeting Republican lawmakers on social media, at their home or Capital offices or even in their home towns. Reactive defensive operations is a losers game. Taking the fight to the bad guys, demands targeting their deepest vulnerabilities. In this case and as the Midterms approach, Republican congressmen and senators are absolutely running scared, even here in deep red Texas where a Democratic upstart just defeated a Republican in deep red Tarrant County for a state Senator’s seat in a district Trump had won the district by 17 points. Here in San Antonio, we recently elected our next mayor, a former Under Secretary of the USAF and out, lesbian. Yes, here in a state run by the likes of deeply MAGA Republicans who revel in ignoring our constitution and the Texas constitution, things are shaking up enough to worry Governor Greg Abbott and the Republican Party of Texas.

The alternative reality that Republicans have been living in during the Trump era, are finding that reality growing smaller by the day. Pretty soon, they will be potential shunning victims within their own districts. If it were up to me, I would demand the three A’s, Apology, atonement and acceptance of their guilt, before readmitting them back into civil society, especially after the abuse they have imposed onto hard-working taxpayers.

And now, let’s sum up this little bit of good news. I promise to make it short for those of you with tired eyes.

My fellow citizens and other residents of our great nation, we’ve had very little to smile about since last November. I’m not saying that the redemption of our republic is yet a sure thing at this stage, but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting a bit brighter these days. All too often when a runner is far ahead in a race, they tend to let off the gas and become complacent. Now is not the time and in fact, it’s time to redouble our efforts and now also on offense. Take the fight to the Republicans where they are most vulnerable. In my opinion… that is directly to every sitting Republican in Congress and now is the time to “strike while the iron is hot.” Their home offices are a great choice but if you can’t travel, follow your local congressman and daily, declare your disgust and objections on their social media posts. They are down and we must not let them get up.

Like the protesters in our streets, non-violence, compassion and communication with the non-violent ICE officials is always a good tactic. Like I said, most are ashamed of these operations. Appeal to their morality, their reputation in their communities and for their families. Shame is a powerful motivator. Use it ethically. When shaming someone who may respond favorably, give them the out by saying, you don’t have to do this, you can stand with us and the constitution. Bleeding members away from the Republican Party may look like an impossible task but every day, we see that those little defections are growing and growing at a slowly increasing pace. Reward those with the courage to change sides. If they do, that’s the “atonement” part of the three A’s.

We can do this America and yes, we will. Back later in the week with hopefully a bit more good news. Good news is the fuel we need to raise a powerful wave, not a blue wave, but a truly American wave. Making this fight partisan is also a losing gambit so please, let’s avoid those shouts of “blue wave” or go Democrats. That won’t sell to voters looking to change sides. I’d recommend making this about restoring our constitutional republic as patriotic Americans and for all Americans. I have long said that if we simply follow the highest precepts of our founder, the politics will work themselves out. When this is over, it’s time to take on Chief Justice John Roberts and end this dangerous Citizens United nonsense that pumped unlimited dark money into our campaigns.

Onward patriots.

Paul

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TAT readers,

Today I will go back to my national security roots, and talk a bit about the just released, NDS. The NDS/ National Defense Strategy is a policy document created by DoD, that gives an overview of how DoD will address the White House’s priorities in the NSS/ National Security Strategy. The NSS, which is the highest level national security document, is created by the White House for each new administration in order to communicate to the legislative branch, where the defense priorities of the United States fall. To put it simply, the NSS lays out the president’s vision for defense and the NDS is DoD, telling us how they will go about pursuing that vision.

Phew, now that we’re through with all that, let’s take a look at why we should all strive to better understand these often droll, policy documents, at least superficially. Spoiler alert… I am significantly disappointed in and somewhat frightened, after having read both the NSS released a couple of weeks ago, and the NDS, released just last week. If I had to sum both up in a sentence, it would go something like this; “Both the new NSS and NDS read like blueprints for empire, power and profit and largely neglects the most serious threats to our nation and world.” I am no stranger to such documents, as that they have been an integral part of much of my national security career. Both documents have been required to be produced by the White House and DoD, going back to 1986.

Considering that today’s essay is about two of the nation’s most critical policy documents, media has paid little attention. Writing about doctrine is droll to say the least, and reading it even more so. I say this as an “apology in advance,” for the occasional and pedantic “doctrine-speak.” Still, these documents provide everyone with some keen insights into what is in store from the administration. These days, we all need to have better insights into this criminal administration, if only for self-defense.

For example, Russia mostly gets a free pass from her aggression, in both documents. Both highlight choosing business relationships over morality. Human rights, environmental issues, extremism, economic elitism, regional peace initiatives and especially alliances, are neglected as priorities. The bottom-line is that the US will choose global relationships based on how they provide us wealth (acquired by any means) and more power, human needs be damned. These priorities hardly speak to the nation we once were, that led the free world by carrying the torch of freedom proudly around the globe. Owning and leading with our values won us the Cold War, not making business deals.

Something else that both new documents strongly imply, is what I have discussed off and on for the past couple of months, the US consolidation of power over the entire western hemisphere, from pole to pole. This consolidation is part of the “new world order” that Putin spoke of in his public remarks, congratulating Trump after last November’s election win.

This administration’s priorities are in my opinion, criminally negligent. By example, building an Executive Branch paramilitary army to deal with undocumented aliens, absurd. Remember, every dollar spent on false reality, deprives resources from our true national security threats. Until the Trump era, both documents were prepared by sane and deeply experienced experts, not the political Kommissars of the Trump administration and GOP. The new NDS claims to focus on the same four priority threats as Biden administration’s 2022 NDS but… the devil as they say, is in the details. They are in no way the same.

"The 2026 NDS lists four priorities, in order: (1) defending the U.S. homeland; (2) deterring China through strength rather than force; (3) increasing burden sharing with U.S. allies and partners; and (4) “supercharging” America's defense industrial base."

- The 2026 National Defense, Strategy by the Numbers
- CSIS
- By Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park
- January 2026

Trump’s priorities on paper, sound like a replay of the Biden’s four NDS priorities, as you can see in the graphic below. The prioritizations on the document though, are part, “smoke-and-mirrors,” part hollow and unlike the same words in the Biden NDS, often mean something entirely different. For example, “defending the homeland.” The Biden administration, did not need hooded, masked and warrantless thugs in the streets, to deport more undocumented aliens, than any other president before him. Those raids and brutal operations against what have turned out to be 73% innocent US citizens, legal residents, legal aliens already in the Asylum system and of course, the undocumented, has remarkably little to do with national security.

As part of my profession, I regularly read professional journals, the work of prestigious think tanks and glean the insights of countless professionals that I believe to be forward thinkers. CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Brookings have long been favorite US think tanks and I respect their work. In a December 8th published piece, Brookings experts weighed in on the new NSS. The majority of the experts’ assessments, I concurred with and those assessments ranged from Luke-warm in parts, to scathing in others. Overwhelmingly, these assembled experts, found disfavor with the document and extreme disfavor with much of it. I encourage everyone to read, time-permitting, the linked Brooking’s piece.

The new NDS, is in my professional opinion, measurably worse. In a close read of the new analysis of the NDS by CSIS, the administration fares little better.

"Summary of the 2026 NDS Approach: The 2026 NDS covers the same topics as the 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) and does so in a similar way. It is not an implementation document but, in effect, a second policy document. The Department of Defense (DOD; this white paper uses the name Department of Defense because that continues to be the agency’s legal name) was apparently reluctant to get ahead of the president in any realm. As evidence of this, the president’s name or a reference to him appears 47 times.

Tone: The tone is populist and partisan. The document rejects the national security approach of previous administrations, including, by implication, the first Trump administration. Indeed, the first Trump administration is mentioned only once—and in passing. 

Radical changes: Homeland and hemispheric security are the top priorities, though the effect on forces is unclear. There is extensive discussion of counter-drug and counter-migration efforts but no discussion of military use in cities. Europe is turned over to the Europeans to defend, with the United States in support. The strategy does not see a conventional conflict with Russia or North Korea as major U.S. force drivers."

- The 2026 National Defense Strategy by the Numbers: Radical Changes, Moderate Changes, and Some Continuities
- CSIS
- Report by Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park
- January 27th, 2026

A couple of my notable objections to Trump’s NDS, revolve around it’s focus on transactional diplomacy, rather than a strategy that advances and protects western liberal democracy and benefits US interests. The new NDS’ agenda, is more power and more wealth, and be damned with promoting or even adhering to, American or western values. These are the primary foreign policy considerations of this administration. To this administration, allies and friends only hold value to the US, so long as they don’t get in the way of the their insatiable greed and lust for power. Oil in Venezuela and Nigeria, rare earth minerals and oil in Argentina and the insanity about Greenland and her natural resources, are just a few examples. Meanwhile, the US military which is paid for with our tax-dollars, has become the private army of conquest, for administration’s own personal gain, not our national security.

Calling immigration a top-tier threat is patently ridiculous when everyone living in America, is under perpetual cyber attack, exposed to evermore frequent and dangerous natural disasters with a dysfunctional and underfunded FEMA, being at risk from disease, environmental hazards, drugs, guns, trafficking etc. Somehow, seeing undocumented immigrants that pay $100B into our treasury for services they cannot access, seems to be what the GOP considers, their highest threat priority. Threat intelligence experts by the dozens, are howling with laughter at the nonsense the White House is selling, to try and justify their actions.

The focus on China as a dangerous competitor, has been on the NDS and NSS priority lists for well over a decade. The difference is, prior to the Trump era our strategy included close cooperation with the very allies that Trump now threatens, intimidates, coerces and worse. Some have now begun limiting intelligence sharing with the US, that they would normally have shared. Obviously, this makes us less safe.

As I often say, “truth is what people and organizations do… not what they say.” Lofty words that mimic the priorities of the Biden administration in the new Trump NSS and NDS, in no way mean the same thing. In fact, the actions of the administration on all national security issues, are as detached from reality as the brainwashed Republican base. In my professional opinion, both of these critical documents reflect nothing but a thinly veiled attempt to sell us on their commitment to our national defense, by trumpeting a strategy that does precisely the opposite. Republicans may believe them, but no other sane person would.

Summary

I won’t beat everyone up with a long summary and will get straight to the point. Both our new NSS and it’s subordinate, the NDS, do not reflect protecting our nation, as can be seen when laying out the objectives of the 2022 Biden administration NSS and comparing them to the current Trump version. The 2026 version supports withdrawal from allies and international organizations, pursuing profitable business with nations sporting horrific human rights records, but have valuable resources, aggressive protectionism of the US and also, the entire western hemisphere, more militarized law enforcement in our streets, far more prey to large financial institutions and on and on and on. None of this represents American values and in reality, leaves us far less safe on the global stage.

Finally, and yes, there’s always, “and the worst thing is…” In their bold arrogance, they proudly share this with the world, humiliating us even further. To be frank, any serious geo-political intelligence or risk analysis professional that was honest, would see what I see. The Brookings and CSIS analysis embedded earlier in this essay, say so in far nicer words than I have used here. Both are highly respected think tanks, but must be a bit more delicate publicly in today’s vengeful political environment. I have no such constraints.

My friends, these two little understood documents are a roadmap. They may be droll and a bit painful to learn about, but they are also instructive as to where all of this insanity is going. The places we’re going according to these documents do not represent America nor make us safer. We need to pay attention to them at least enough, to understand why they are a threat to our nation, our values and our very daily lives.

Back later in the week, and my very best until then,

Paul

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